Unmountable boot volume error - XP DISC?

[Lori]

I have a wonderful Dell computer, as does everyone else in my family. My
daughter got the dreaded blue unmountable boot volume error tonight and from
all the research I just did here, seems you should use your Windows XP disc,
if you don't have a startup disc, which of course we don't, and then run a
check disk with the command chkdsk/r to fix this. However, we don't know
which disc goes to which computer. Would it matter if we use an Windows XP
disc that came with my computer if they were purchased a few years apart but
both run on Windows XP Home? Will that matter?

I am just so tired from all this leg work...or should I say, eye and brain
work to figure this one out. I saw some links to sites to download registry
fix programs, but not sure which is safe or what to do.

Any help is welcomed, please. Thank you in advance!

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

You must enter 'recovery console' to do the chkdsk command. Put in a Home
edition CD and boot to it (F12 on a Dell. usaually available from the Dell
BIOS screen). Choose R for repair and the prompt will appear.
If chkdsk is no help, the other REPAIR feature you need is after starting a
full setup from CD (pressing ENTER rather than R). It will be necessary for
the Home edition CD you use to match your machines 'Service Pack Level'
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Mark L. Ferguson MS-MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Mark.Ferguson

 

[Lori]

Mark,
Thank you for the reply. I will give it a shot with my disk this morning.
I have a hunch that it's going to require something more than the Recovery
Console, but you never know. I believe this is still under warranty, so I
can most probably get the machine-specific disk from Dell still at this
point.

I do have one last question (for now). Do you know what causes this error?
It seems to have happened to a great percentage of people. If you know, is
it the fault of the user or something that malfunctions within the OS?

Thank you for your help.

 

[Lori]

The bad news is, the drive contains one or more unrecoverable errors. That
means the drive is gone. Right?

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

I believe you are seeing a hard drive failure. Some part of the disk is
damaged. Sometimes a simple chkdsk will mark that portion of the drive as
unusuable, and it will work fine for a good while longer. Sometimes even a
Repair setup from CD will fail also, and you are stuck with trying to get
Dell to replace that.
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[Mark L. Ferguson]

Yes. I my opinion, if chkdsk cannot fix a drive, you are best served by
giving up on it and getting a new drive. There are ways to recover the data,
but usually quite expensive.

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[Lori]

Mark,
Just got off the phone with Dell. Since I wasn't provided the Dell Windows
XP recovery disk, they are sending that, along with all the software disks
that should have come with the computer, plus a new hard drive in case all
else fails. I suggested installing a parallel operating system on the hard
drive space available in order to be able to access the data first and back
it up with our external and THEN reinstall a clean OS on the computer, but
they want me to receive all the items first and then will attempt a repair.
I tried to do a repair install over the existing one, but this disk which is
not computer-specific to this computer doesn't give me the option.

There was an article that I followed which told me to copy from the Windows
CD i386\ntldr to the C drive and then ntdetect.com to the C drive. But then
when I got to the line to type in attrib -h -r -s C:\boot.ini del
C:\boot.ini, it would not accept that line no matter how I tried. Then they
suggested the final line BootCfg /Rebuild to hopefully either get rid of any
damaged boot.ini, search for systems and make a new one, as they say, perhaps
allowing the damaged Windows to reappear, but giving you a chance at getting
at the repair. Couldn't complete the attrib line, so that's out.

I made an error and tried the command in the recovery console of bootfix and
now when I try to boot up regularly, I get a missing ntldr error message.
Grrr.....

Thanks for all your input.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Mark,
Just got off the phone with Dell. Since I wasn't provided the Dell
Windows
XP recovery disk, they are sending that, along with all the software disks
that should have come with the computer, plus a new hard drive in case all
else fails. I suggested installing a parallel operating system on the
hard
drive space available in order to be able to access the data first and
back

Not really a practical idea for a variety of reasons, starting with the fact
that you won't get past the Unmountable Boot Volume error this way.

Simply move the drive to another system, even attach it via USB2 case -
these are around $30. Then just copy the files. Be sure you get all the
data, often files such as mail and address books are helpfully kept in
hidden folders.

If the drive is giving you grief, this is the way to go, not thrashing the
drive and using up what limited time it may have left.

500 gig drives are under $100.

it up with our external and THEN reinstall a clean OS on the computer, but
they want me to receive all the items first and then will attempt a
repair.
I tried to do a repair install over the existing one, but this disk which
is
not computer-specific to this computer doesn't give me the option.

If the disk is a "restore" disk rather than a bootable XP CD, it won't have
that option OR the Recovery Console.

There was an article that I followed which told me to copy from the
Windows
CD i386\ntldr to the C drive and then ntdetect.com to the C drive. But
then
when I got to the line to type in attrib -h -r -s C:\boot.ini del
C:\boot.ini, it would not accept that line no matter how I tried.

As written, that's true. That should be two lines not one. The second line
starts with the command "del".

And it'd be a better idea to rename that file; and you possibly couldn't do
it at all if you were running Windows at the time as it's a system file.

Then they
suggested the final line BootCfg /Rebuild to hopefully either get rid of
any
damaged boot.ini, search for systems and make a new one, as they say,
perhaps
allowing the damaged Windows to reappear, but giving you a chance at
getting
at the repair. Couldn't complete the attrib line, so that's out.

See above, you were possibly stacking the commands on one line.

I made an error and tried the command in the recovery console of bootfix
and
now when I try to boot up regularly, I get a missing ntldr error message.
Grrr.....

Thanks for all your input.

So you know, you don't need any specific XP CD to use the Recovery Console.
You can use any bootable XP CD, Home or Pro, retail, OEM or Upgrade.

HTH
-pk

 

[Lori]

Patrick,
Thanks for all that info. I really like your suggestion to remove the drive
and attach it via USB cables and get the info out. I will do that today! I
might as well just put in the new drive, as you suggest. Makes far better
sense than to take a chance this may happen again.

However, since I "fooled" around and tried things, and I can't even get past
the NTLDR error on startup, will I be able to still copy the data out of the
drive via USB?

Thank you.

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

Yes, Patrick's suggestion works great and if the drive is at all readable
will let you copy out whatever data is still readable. The inability to boot
is probably due to some small flaw that can't be fixed in the boot sectors
of the drive.

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Please use the Communities guidelines when posting.
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Use the "Ratings" feature. It helps the new users.
Mark L. Ferguson MS-MVP
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[Lori]

Well, Mark, Patrick, just went to Staples, bought a hard drive enclosure and
am setting it up now - please say a little prayer for me (if you believe in
that kind of stuff). It can't hurt - could use all the prayers I could get
right now. The worst part is, we realized last night that her Sweet 16
candle lighting speeches (all 16 of them) are inside this hard drive and her
party is Saturday! She poured her heart into these and we are praying we can
recover them. Will let you know.

Thanks again for your assistance. It is really appreciated.