Cannot Boot

[Guest]

Have a year old Dell 4700 desktop, Windows XP Home. Received message
"Unmountable Boot Volume Error." Will not boot. Will not boot safe mode.
Followed instructions--Set to boot by CD drive. Inserted Windows XP CD.
Still will not boot. Always returns to error message.
Note-Just recently installed Symantic update.
What now?

 

[Rich Barry]

This was taken from Kelly's site
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm Select U and scroll down.
You can also do a google search Unmountable Boot Volume
More info on using the Recovery Console
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314058

Unmountable Boot Volume
"STOP 0x000000ED UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME" Error Message

Comment from: Mike Truitt [MS]

It comes down to an inconsistency on how the IDE specification handles
caching. What most likely has happened is that the NTFS transaction logfile
($logfile) has become out of sync with the drive. This happens when the OS
performs write
through caching and the drive instead holds the data on its hardware cache
and then tries to write it out in a non-deterministic method. This becomes
a problem when there is a surprise shutdown and the hardware cache is
flushed before it is written to the drive.

To work-around the issue, you should be able to boot to a Recovery Console,
log into it (see Q308402 if you have problems with this) and then run a
chkdsk /r. This will reset the $logfile and allow you to enter the system.
I would suggest getting the patch off of Windows Update for Q315403 when the
system is up and running again.

 

[Guest]

Bill,

The Chkdsk /r will probably take quite a while I would suggest...

You can boot to the XP cd and when you see the Welcome to setup press the
letter R
You will get a dos prompt
Then type "chkdsk /p" without the quotes and hit enter
When that is done type "fixboot" and hit enter
"Y" and enter at the prompt
Then type "exit" and hit enter
The system will now reboot into Windows

Good Luck,

Joe

Kemco IT Professional

 

[Roberto]

Have a year old Dell 4700 desktop, Windows XP Home. Received message
"Unmountable Boot Volume Error." Will not boot. Will not boot safe mode.
Followed instructions--Set to boot by CD drive. Inserted Windows XP CD.
Still will not boot. Always returns to error message.
Note-Just recently installed Symantic update.
What now?

To add to the others good advice, if chkdsk /r [/f] or fixboot doesn't
fix the problem put the drive into another working machine as slave
and run defrag.
This method has helped me in the past were a HDD was badly
fragmented.

rgds
Roberto