unmountable boot volume or Hard drive problem

[Chris]

I have already read the MS article and tried chkdsk and bootfix. The
problem is that the recovery console can't usually find the windows
installation.

The weird part is it will boot in safe mode and if I install the
harddrive as a second drive in another computer chkdsk finds no problems
and the drive is completely readable.

Another thing of interest is that when I tried to copy the unmountable
boot volume with partition magic it always fails with an "unexpected OS
error" reading the goofy drive.

I had the same problem previously with this maxtor drive and this is the
warranty replacement. Is it possible that it is actually a drive
failure?

The last drive would never work completely correctly even after
formatting. The other odd part was that the Maxtor diagnostic test
returned no errors.

Anyone have a similar experience?

Chris

 

[Malke]

I have already read the MS article and tried chkdsk and bootfix. The
problem is that the recovery console can't usually find the windows
installation.

The weird part is it will boot in safe mode and if I install the
harddrive as a second drive in another computer chkdsk finds no
problems and the drive is completely readable.

Another thing of interest is that when I tried to copy the unmountable
boot volume with partition magic it always fails with an "unexpected
OS error" reading the goofy drive.

I had the same problem previously with this maxtor drive and this is
the
warranty replacement. Is it possible that it is actually a drive
failure?

The last drive would never work completely correctly even after
formatting. The other odd part was that the Maxtor diagnostic test
returned no errors.

Anyone have a similar experience?

Chris

Hi, Chris. Is this one of those "super-slim" Maxtors? If so, then yes I
think they are awful drives. I've had 3 go bad in system builds, and
another one that is strangely flaky on a testbed machine.

Malke

 

[Kevin Chambers]

-----Original Message-----

Hi, Chris. Is this one of those "super-slim" Maxtors? If so, then yes I
think they are awful drives. I've had 3 go bad in system builds, and
another one that is strangely flaky on a testbed machine.

While it may be a bad drive, it sounds like the best bet
at the moment is to put the drive back in as a secondary
drive, back up whatever you want to save, and try
repartitioning and reformatting the drive. You could take
the further step of downloading Maxtor's diagnostic and
low-level formatting the drive and trying again.

Kevin

 

[Chris]

While it may be a bad drive, it sounds like the best bet
at the moment is to put the drive back in as a secondary
drive, back up whatever you want to save, and try
repartitioning and reformatting the drive. You could take
the further step of downloading Maxtor's diagnostic and
low-level formatting the drive and trying again.

Kevin

I did that with the last Maxtor with the same problem and it would fail
formatting, but pass the maxtor diagnostic test.

It is just odd that the drive will run in safe mode and can be read/write
as a secondary drive, but is unbootable.

Chris

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Chris;
Power off
Desktop:...Open the case and reseat the hard drive IDE ribbon cable at
both ends.
Laptop:... simply remove and reinsert the hard drive.
If that fails:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=297185
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315403

Otherwise go to the website of the hard drive manufacturer and
download their hard drive diagnostics.

Do you have a hard drive overlay such as Max Blast?
Windows XP sometimes has issues with overlay software.
You may need to perform a Clean Installation without there overlay
software which is not needed anyway.

 

[AgedTramp]

You say that you have formatted the drive... then try this fdisk (comes
with xp-cd) has the option to "make this drive bootable". Try that

oh and don't forget to change the jumpers on the back of the drive.

 

[alanrc54]

Chris, for what it's worth, just because it turned out that way with the
last drive, don't assume that the current drive is going to be the same. I
would suggest you go back to square one and do everything all over again
with this drive.(basically what Kevin said)

Alan