Hard drives not found (Unmountable_boot_volume)

[Guest]

I have a custom built PC with master and slave SATA hard drives running on
Windows XP.
Recently, I was playing a game (Half Life 2 Episode 1) when my PC suddenly
crashed with a Blue Screen. I restarted and the computer was working fine for
a short while until the screen went entirely glitchy. I assumed it was the
graphics card drivers I had recently installed for the game. However, when I
tried to restart Windows with "the most recent settings that worked", it
would run the Windows loading screen and then crash again. It now restarts
automatically every time, and I cannot get Windows to start. When I stopped
the restart, the blue screen I get states:

Unmountable_boot_volume

with the paramaters:

0x000000ED (0x86F04820, 0x00000185, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

I have tried running chkdsk to try and repair Windows, but I recieve the
message:

"Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer."

I went into the CMOS to try to autodetect my hard drives and it cannot
detect either of them. I opened up my case and reseated the cables at the
motherboard, at both hard drives and at the connecting adapter in between and
my computer still doesn't recognize my hard drives. I'd think that both of my
hard drives wouldn't fail at the same time, and I didn't touch any of the
cables before hand.
If the cables are faulty, I can easily replace the 4-Pin to SATA Power Cable
Splitter, but the cable connecting to the motherboard is embedded in the
power supply. I'd assume that the motherboard is recieving power however.

Should I replace my cable? Or is there a step that I'm missing?

 

[mayers57]

I have a custom built PC with master and slave SATA hard drives running on
Windows XP.
Recently, I was playing a game (Half Life 2 Episode 1) when my PC suddenly
crashed with a Blue Screen. I restarted and the computer was working fine for
a short while until the screen went entirely glitchy. I assumed it was the
graphics card drivers I had recently installed for the game. However, when I
tried to restart Windows with "the most recent settings that worked", it
would run the Windows loading screen and then crash again. It now restarts
automatically every time, and I cannot get Windows to start. When I stopped
the restart, the blue screen I get states:

Unmountable_boot_volume

with the paramaters:

0x000000ED (0x86F04820, 0x00000185, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

I have tried running chkdsk to try and repair Windows, but I recieve the
message:

"Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer."

I went into the CMOS to try to autodetect my hard drives and it cannot
detect either of them. I opened up my case and reseated the cables at the
motherboard, at both hard drives and at the connecting adapter in between and
my computer still doesn't recognize my hard drives. I'd think that both of my
hard drives wouldn't fail at the same time, and I didn't touch any of the
cables before hand.
If the cables are faulty, I can easily replace the 4-Pin to SATA Power Cable
Splitter, but the cable connecting to the motherboard is embedded in the
power supply. I'd assume that the motherboard is recieving power however.

Should I replace my cable? Or is there a step that I'm missing?

Hi Savanna , first of all SATA drives do not use the designation Master
and Slave like the ide drives. Just thought you would like to know.
Also here is a website which seems to describe your problem.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=297185
In this case it looks like your file system has become corrupted. Sorry
to hear that if that's true. Couple things you can try is to disconnect
the 2nd drive's cable and see if that works. Check your bios and make
sure SATA is still enabled. Also check your system fans. Sounds like
originally when the system was glitchly it could have been over
heating.
If all else fails we can resuce the data at least from the drives if
need be. Let me know what happens, i'm curious.

 

[Og]

I have a custom built PC with master and slave SATA hard drives running on
Windows XP.
Recently, I was playing a game (Half Life 2 Episode 1) when my PC suddenly
crashed with a Blue Screen. I restarted and the computer was working fine
for
a short while until the screen went entirely glitchy. I assumed it was the
graphics card drivers I had recently installed for the game. However, when
I
tried to restart Windows with "the most recent settings that worked", it
would run the Windows loading screen and then crash again. It now restarts
automatically every time, and I cannot get Windows to start. When I
stopped
the restart, the blue screen I get states:

Unmountable_boot_volume

with the paramaters:

0x000000ED (0x86F04820, 0x00000185, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

I have tried running chkdsk to try and repair Windows, but I recieve the
message:

"Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer."

I went into the CMOS to try to autodetect my hard drives and it cannot
detect either of them. I opened up my case and reseated the cables at the
motherboard, at both hard drives and at the connecting adapter in between
and
my computer still doesn't recognize my hard drives. I'd think that both of
my
hard drives wouldn't fail at the same time, and I didn't touch any of the
cables before hand.
If the cables are faulty, I can easily replace the 4-Pin to SATA Power
Cable
Splitter, but the cable connecting to the motherboard is embedded in the
power supply. I'd assume that the motherboard is recieving power however.

Should I replace my cable? Or is there a step that I'm missing?

If your system BIOS does not recognize either drive, then either:
1.) Both hard drives failed at exactly the same time (unlikely, but
possible)
or
2.) The power supply provides power to the motherboard but not the drives
(unlikely, but possible)
or
3.) Your motherboard drive controller has failed (likely).
Steve

 

[Ron Martell]

I have a custom built PC with master and slave SATA hard drives running on
Windows XP.

There is no such thing as "master and slave" with SATA drives. Each
drive stands alone on a dedicated controller connection.

Unless you have used a RAID configuration with the two drives so that
they appear as one combined drive in Windows. In that case you may
be in deep trouble.

Try making up a bootable CD using Bart's PE Builder from
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ and booting your computer with that.

You should then be able to tell if your hard drives are accessible,
and you can run

CHKDSK C: /R

from the Bart's CD so as to possibly fix the unmountable boot volume
error.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."