UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME - Please Help!!!

[Guest]

Hi. I am having a problem getting into my computer, have searched the web and
have found some questions with similar problems but no solutions. OK - here
the problem:
I am running XP professional on an HP laptop. No hardware or software
changes in months. I tried to turn the computer on when it wasn't plugged in
- the battery died while it was loading, the computer was in hibernate mode
at the time. When I tried turning it on again I got a whole bunch of errors
about files not saving properly. The computer worked fine for about half an
hour then blue screened - I think the error message was kernel_inpage_error
or something like that. Since then I have been getting
unmountable_boot_volume blue screen error shortly after the XP logo comes up.
I have tried the following to fix it:
chkdsk /r - stops at 39% - the volume appears to contain one or more
unrecoverable errors.
fixboot - gives the message: "the boot sector is corrupt" then "boot sector
could not be fixed'
fixmbr same as above
bootcfg /scan could not complete scan - the other functions don't work if
the scan fails.

safemode hangs at mups.sys

last known good configuration doesn't work

My computer doesn't have a floppy drive, so I haven't been able to write a
bootable floppy - they told me I'd never need one since usb flash cards are
the future.

I really need to get files off my computer, any suggestions on how to
resolve this?

Thanks in advance for your help

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

Please try the following link to Jim Eshelman's web page - right hand column
(ED)

http://aumha.org/win5/kbestop.htm

--


Will Denny
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply - but the site gives the same info as the microsoft
website. I've tried all the the methods they suggest, it doesn't work. I'm
looking for some new ideas on how to get past a faulty boot sector and
salvage my files.

 

[Malke]

Thanks for the reply - but the site gives the same info as the
microsoft website. I've tried all the the methods they suggest, it
doesn't work. I'm looking for some new ideas on how to get past a
faulty boot sector and salvage my files.

There are a few ways to get data off that drive. First, you could try
slaving the drive in another computer with a working XP install. You
will need a laptop-to-IDE adapter. If XP sees the drive and the data,
you can copy the files off using Explorer normally.

If you don't have an extra computer, adapter, or the working XP install
won't boot with the laptop drive slaved (sometimes this happens if the
slave drive is too messed up), you may be able to get the data with a
Bart's PE or one of the Linux live cd's. I use Knoppix, and here is
information on that:

An easy way to retrieve Windows files is to boot with Knoppix, a Linux
distro on a live cd. You will need a computer with two cd drives, one
of which is a cd/dvd-rw OR a usb thumb drive with enough capacity to
hold your data. To get Knoppix, you need a computer with a fast
Internet connection and third-party burning software. Download the
Knoppix .iso from www.knoppix.net and create your bootable cd. Then
boot with it and it will be able to see the Windows files. If you are
using the usb thumb drive, right-click on its icon (on the Desktop) to
get its properties and uncheck the box that says "Read Only". Then
click on it to open it. Note that the default mouse action in the
window manager used by Knoppix (KDE) is a single click to open instead
of the traditional MS Windows' double-click. Otherwise, use the K3b
burning program to burn the files to cd/dvd-r's.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ (Bart's PE)

Once you have your data, you can use the laptop's Recovery procedure to
go back to factory condition.

Malke