Unmountable Boot Volume BSOD

[Guest]

P4 XP Pro box with 160GB HD generates Unmountable Boot Volume BSOD. SeaTools
diagnostics floppy reports errors on HD. So I run chkdsk from the CD. After
this I can boot into safe mode and full mode once. So I run chkdsk from the
CD and this time when it completes I ghost the HD to a brand spanking new 80
GB HD (there was only 6GB of data to transfer). I make the new 80 GB HD
Disk0 (C and boot successfully into safe mode and full mode once. But when
I power down and reboot I get BSOD Unmountable Boot Volume – on a brand new
HD!

How can this be?

 

[Richard Urban]

You are trying to Ghost a hard drive that obviously has problems - maybe
corrupted data and damaged sector. Therefore, your Ghost image may well be
incomplete. The time to create a Ghost image is when the computer is running
in a known good state, both hardware wise and software wise.

Creating an image from a damaged hard drive seldom, if ever, works.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Guest]

Thanks for that Richard, but do you have any suggestions as to how I might
recover the settings and data from the damaged drive?

Jonathan Hippisley

 

[Kerry Brown]

Thanks for that Richard, but do you have any suggestions as to how I
might recover the settings and data from the damaged drive?

From a fresh install on a good drive with the bad drive installed as a slave
or on a different channel use xcopy to copy what you can. If the bad drive
is d: then it would look something like this xcopy d:\*.* c:\TargetFolder
/s/e/c/h/k and possibly /g/o. Once you have copied the data remove the drive
and see what you can rescue from the copied data.

Kerry

 

[Guest]

Thanks for that Kerry.

I began the xcopy as you described, and after about 20 mins the computer
just cut out, stone dead. I know this is not a Windows question, but do you,
or does anyone else have any idea why this might be?

It's actually done this a few times during the chkdsk routine described in
my initial post. I tried to ignore it and pretend it was not happening, but
I guess I must acknowledge that something is wrong with the hardware. The
question is what?

I'd appreciate any ideas.

 

[Kerry Brown]

Thanks for that Kerry.

I began the xcopy as you described, and after about 20 mins the
computer just cut out, stone dead. I know this is not a Windows
question, but do you, or does anyone else have any idea why this
might be?

It's actually done this a few times during the chkdsk routine
described in my initial post. I tried to ignore it and pretend it
was not happening, but I guess I must acknowledge that something is
wrong with the hardware. The question is what?

I'd appreciate any ideas.

Does it do this when the bad drive is not hooked up? When the computer
suddenly quits it's often a heat issue or power supply. A bad drive can
cause power problems.

Kerry

 

[Guest]

Thanks again Kerry. In answer to your question it died for me after I had
disconnected the original bad HD. I am working with the power supply theory.


Using another computer I xcopied the ghosted files to a third HD with a
clean install. I have now installed a new power supply and put that HD back
into the original computer and it seems to be working. I have my fingers
firmly crossed.

Unfortunately I shall have to wait a few more hours for confirmation of
success, because previously it did not crash until well into afternoon with
the ambient temperature in the high twenties (or 80F).

Jonathan Hippisley

 

[Kerry Brown]

Thanks again Kerry. In answer to your question it died for me after
I had disconnected the original bad HD. I am working with the power
supply theory.


Using another computer I xcopied the ghosted files to a third HD with
a clean install. I have now installed a new power supply and put
that HD back into the original computer and it seems to be working.
I have my fingers firmly crossed.

Unfortunately I shall have to wait a few more hours for confirmation
of success, because previously it did not crash until well into
afternoon with the ambient temperature in the high twenties (or 80F).

That sounds more like a heat problem. Make sure all the fans are working. It
may still be the PSU. It can overheat if it's malfunctioning or marginal for
the equipment installed.

Kerry

 

[Guest]

I agree. I'll run some "busy" utilities such as AV scans and see what
happens as the day warms up. I'll report back to this thread later in the
day (Aussie time).

Jonathan

 

[Guest]

Thanks again for your posts Kerry. For the record changing the power supply
seemed to do the trick. The PC has been back with the owner now for a few
days. No news is good news, but my fingers are still firmly crossed.

Best regards,

Jonno

 

[Kerry Brown]

Thanks again for your posts Kerry. For the record changing the power
supply seemed to do the trick. The PC has been back with the owner
now for a few days. No news is good news, but my fingers are still
firmly crossed.

Glad it worked out.

Kerry