Laptop: Unmountable Boot Disk

r2d2c3p0

Hey there,

My laptop has stopped booting up. It's a Toshiba A50 Satelitte Notebook (Australiasian version).

I've read some technical notes about how to fix the "Unmountable Book Disk" and one suggestion is to run the Windows XP CD and select the Recovery option.

Does anyone know if I need MY Windows XP CD, ie. with my Serial number to do this? I need to fix my Laptop asap and my cd is 10,000 miles away!

Does anyone have any other ideas on how to solve this problem? Windows starts to boot up then it stops with a blue screen white writing and says "Unmountable Boot Disk"

Alternatively anyone know of a company where I can get a good, cheap and quick turnaround on fixing it?

Many thanks!

startrekker

Read herewhere you can download a windows xp boot disk

Browntoa

you need to repair the boot sector as follows

How to access the Recovery Console: - take this link for more informationThe Recovery Console is a set of tools which run from a Command prompt. If your system is formatted as NTFS then these tools can help you manage the partition. You can learn more about the Recovery Console through Help and Support or
Click here for information about the different commands and their functions .
To run the Recovery Console from CD boot with the Windows XP CD (or with the optional 6 floppy disk set) and select "R" at the Welcome Screen.

The screen will switch to black and you will be asked which installation to log on to. If you only have one installation you will press "1". Remember that numlock is off at this time.

Next you'll be prompted to enter your Admin password. By default it is created blank so just press Enter.

At the C:\Windows command prompt type "Help" for a list of commands you can use.


How to Repair the Boot Sector:
If XP won't start it may be due to a damaged boot sector or a missing or corrupt ntldr or ntdetect.com files.
To replace damaged ntldr and ntdetect.com you can copy fresh files from the XP CD using the COPY command. Boot with the XP CD and enter the Recovery Console (as above). At the Command Prompt type the following (where "X" is your CD-Rom drive letter) allowing the files to overwrite the old files
COPY X:\i386\NTLDR C:
COPY X:\i386\NTDETECT.COM C:

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm

r2d2c3p0

Thanks a million Startrekker and Browntoa!!!

You've really helped. I'm so pleased there's hope for my laptop yet.

One last question -- the boot/recovery disk I can download talks of 6 floppy disks.

Of course my laptop doesnt have a floppy drive ... is it possible to download the recovery files and burn it to CD? Will this then boot from CD?

Alternatively I have USB ports (but you cannot boot from them) and a removable hard drive (USB connector).

Could you give me some idea of how to run the Recovery app in such circumstances. Will it run if I burn it to CD?

Many thanks again -- you guys are fantastic!

Browntoa

you can use a linux boot disk like Knoppix to boot the Laptop, you will need to go into bios to make sure it boots from CD first

http://www.knoppix.org/

or this

http://ebcd.pcministry.com/

then copy those 2 files from ANY xp PC onto CD

Toxteth_OGrady

Try this.

:cool:

TOG

r2d2c3p0

Thanks for all your helpful suggestions. From reading this material it looks like I can create a LINUX boot disk (even though I don't use LINUX now).

Which will allow me to 'break into' for want of a better word my laptop .. from where I can run the Recovery EXE file -- is this correct?

I have also read the helpful Information Week stuff, which leads to http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/cdrom/ which discussed boot disks. So I hope between it all I should be able to remedy the situation.

I'll copy the Windows Recovery files to the same CD as the Bootdisk... and see how we go.

One other important question ... does anyone know how to access the BIOS on a Toshiba laptop ... the keys I might normally associate with the task don't work.

Thanks guys!

r2d2c3p0

Without a access to a working laptop I'm stuggling a bit to organise a Boot Disk as described above to help recover Windows etc.

Does anyone know where I can buy Boot Disk in London (pref. West or Central).... I've been into PC World but they're as helpful as a smack in head...

Any advice? Thanks team!

Chippy_Minton

Instructions for accessing Toshiba BIOS here -- http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

Current version of Bart's PE is at http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/. When building the boot CD it needs the windows XP CD if it can't find Windows installation files on your hard disk.

r2d2c3p0

Is there anywhere you an get one of these boot disks?

Or do you have to make one? It's a bit hard to make one when your computer is _already_ suffering from the boot disk affliction.

Browntoa

what part of central london do you mean..I work in the City ....have disk