Boot floppy with Networking and ntfs compatiblity

[mydejamail]

I am getting an "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME" error in my system, however
the CD-ROM drive is not being detected, and I am looking for a boot
floppy with networking and workgroup file sharing ability that will
allow me to transfer some critical files of it.

Can anyone recommend such utilities? It has to be a floppy, not CD.
Even USB Booting of any kind is not supported by the BIOS.

Something like a floppy version of Barts CD, 911CD and there are some
Linux based utility disks with such facilities. Any ideas (tomsrtbt)?

 

[Kerry Brown]

I am getting an "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME" error in my system, however
the CD-ROM drive is not being detected, and I am looking for a boot
floppy with networking and workgroup file sharing ability that will
allow me to transfer some critical files of it.

Can anyone recommend such utilities? It has to be a floppy, not CD.
Even USB Booting of any kind is not supported by the BIOS.

Something like a floppy version of Barts CD, 911CD and there are some
Linux based utility disks with such facilities. Any ideas (tomsrtbt)?

It sounds like there may be a hardware problem with your drive controller.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I am getting an "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME" error in my system, however
the CD-ROM drive is not being detected, and I am looking for a boot
floppy with networking and workgroup file sharing ability that will
allow me to transfer some critical files of it.

Can anyone recommend such utilities? It has to be a floppy, not CD.
Even USB Booting of any kind is not supported by the BIOS.

Something like a floppy version of Barts CD, 911CD and there are some
Linux based utility disks with such facilities. Any ideas (tomsrtbt)?

You can boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk (www.bootdisk.com)
and run ntfsdos.exe (www.sysinternals.com) to access your files. AFAIK
you can also get network boot disks from www.bootdisk.com. Expect
to spend a lot of time to make it work with your particular network
adapter unless you're experienced with network boot disks. Retrieving
your critical files from your most recent backup would be a far quicker
method, which you have of course since the files are critical.

As an alternative you could install the problem disk as a slave
disk in some other WinXP/2000 PC.

 

[mydejamail]

You can boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk (www.bootdisk.com)
and run ntfsdos.exe (www.sysinternals.com) to access your files. AFAIK
you can also get network boot disks from www.bootdisk.com. Expect
to spend a lot of time to make it work with your particular network
adapter unless you're experienced with network boot disks. Retrieving
your critical files from your most recent backup would be a far quicker
method, which you have of course since the files are critical.

As an alternative you could install the problem disk as a slave
disk in some other WinXP/2000 PC.

If there is a simple utility disk that can ran chkdsk on an NTFS
partition that will be fine. I will still have to get the files off
via network. It is a laptop and I can't access it internally.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

If there is a simple utility disk that can ran chkdsk on an NTFS
partition that will be fine. I will still have to get the files off
via network. It is a laptop and I can't access it internally.

Of course you can access your laptop disk. There are two
simple ways:
- Install it in a $20.00 USB case, then connect it to some
other WinXP/2000 PC.
- Buy a $10.00 2.5" to IDE ribbon cable adapter, then
run it as a slave disk on some WinXP/2000 PC. Be very
careful when you do this: If you connect the adapter back
to front then you will fry your disk.

Running utilities such as chkdsk is risky - they could obliterate
whatever is left on the disk.

 

[Juan I. Cahis]

Yes, in www.sysinternals.com there is a free utility called NTFSCHECK
(or similar) that it can be run from an MS-DOS boot disk. It does a
CHKDISK on an NTFS volume

If there is a simple utility disk that can ran chkdsk on an NTFS
partition that will be fine. I will still have to get the files off
via network. It is a laptop and I can't access it internally.

Thanks
Juan I. Cahis
Santiago de Chile (South America)
Note: Please forgive me for my bad English, I am trying to improve it!

 

[Kerry Brown]

If there is a simple utility disk that can ran chkdsk on an NTFS
partition that will be fine. I will still have to get the files off
via network. It is a laptop and I can't access it internally.

I agree with Pegasus. Get the drive backed up before you run chkdsk or any
other utilities on it. If the data is important then the cost of a USB
enclosure is cheap.