Windows Won't Load - Unmountable_Boot_Volume

[BigTimeNovice]

I'm using Windows XP Home SP2 with all most recent updates. Everything was fine, but now after the splash Windows XP screen, a blue screen of death appears saying that winodows won't load b/c of UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME. It says to restart in safe mode which I've done numerous times. I can't get to windows to do anything. It also says "Technical information: *** STOP: 0x000000ED (0x82F972D0, 0xc000009c, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)." I can't get past this! Please help!!!

[proone]

I encountered this same problem a couple days ago and was able to fix it, here's what I did. Go into windows recovery console, either from booting with the xp cd that came with the computer or download the disks from here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;q310994

Once you get into the recovery console, type this:

chkdsk /p
fixboot
exit

Then reboot and hopefully VOILA!

[SuperSparks]

Download and run the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic utility (they all run from floppy, so you don't need to get into Windows), and see what it reports. Here are the common ones:

Seagate Seatools

IBM / Hitachi Drive Fitness Test

Maxtor Maxblast 3

Maxtor PowerMax

Western Digital Software & Drivers

Fujitsu Utilities

[BigTimeNovice]

Proone, when I run the chkdsk /p, it gets stuck at 75% completed and will not go any further.

Supersparks, I don't know what drive I have. I have a dell 600m that's out of the warranty. There is no floppy drive, only a CD-rom. Will I be able to burn the disk and put it into the CD-rom to run as a diagnostic? Also do you know which company's diagnostic I should run for a 600m?

Thank you

[photolady]

Use Everest to find out what drive you have. In those Dell's I work on at work most have either Western Digital or Maxtor drives. But Everest will tell you for sure. Most diagnostics disks can be used from CD's too.

http://www.lavalys.com/products/down...ng=en&pageid=3

[proone]

It might be time for a new hard drive... Here is another switch to try if the /p one did not work. This one will take longer to run...

chkdsk /r

[SuperSparks]

Another good source of disk diagnostic utilities, especially for those without a floppy, is the Ultimate Boot CD:

Ultimate Boot CD

[BigTimeNovice]

I will try these tonight. Supersparks, will this reformat the drive? I am trying to salvage my data.
Thanks everybody

[SuperSparks]

No, all the diagnostic utilities do is report on the status of the drive. Some of them will have other tools, such as low-level formatting options, but those aren't something that you could select accidentally.

[BigTimeNovice]

Proone, it only would go to 25% and stop.
Photolady, I burnt that file onto a bootable cd and it would not run it. It was in a dos screen with A:\> with a flashing cursor. I don't know what to type now.
Supersparks, I guess I can't run that until I know which drive I have right?

[SuperSparks]

It would probably be easiest to take the side off the case and look at the label on the hard drive to find out what make it is. There used to be a DOS version of Everest, I think, but it doesn't appear to be available any more. If you absolutely cannot ascertain the brand of drive, use Seatools, which is supposed to be able to run diagnostics on any drive. But it's better to run the maker's own utility if you can.

[BigTimeNovice]

I am going to let a friend try to fix the computer. Thank you all for the help. I will let you all know the results.