Unmountable_boot_Volume in Windows XP

I have my brother's laptop computer that has been running Windows XP, I believe SP2, but not 100% sure. He claims he hasn't recently installed any new software or hardware and hasn't downloaded anything off the internet. Today, when he went to turn his laptop on, he was greeted with an error screen that stated:

"A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any windows updates you might need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F* to select Advanced Startup Options, and then select Safe Mode.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x000000ED (0x8972E758,0xC000006,0x00000000,0x00000000)"

I tried to reset the BIOS settings, no luck, I tried booting in Safe Mode, no luck. I tried booting in Safe Mode Command Prompt, no luck. I tried booting to the last known Good Configuration, no luck. Every time the computer boots to this error screen. I tried booting with Bart PE, but it wouldn't work. I booted with a Knoppix Live CD and was able to gain read access to all of my data, so I know that the actual HDD is still functional, but I am unable to figure out how to get it to mount properly.

Microsoft's website was not very encouraging. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297185

Any help?

Hey, try this ..

boot up with your windows xp cd .. and go to repair console .. and log into your OS its usually "1" it will ask for a password -for the administration account- if you don't have any pass just press enter ..

and then your in your C:\ partition .. type :

chkdsk /p

after it finishes type

fixboot

and answer "y"

and then type

exit

if you can't log in your OS in the first place, then check your hdd if its running .. make sure its read in your BIOS.

–

tell me what happens ;)

It's a Dell Laptop. It didn't come with a WinXP CD and he neglected to make the recovery CDs. I tried to use my CD's on his laptop (I have a COMPAQ) but it didn't work. I am going to lecture him tomorrow about how stupid that was.

I was finally able to get Bart PE to boot and tmanaged to run chkdsk. It found several errors, but stated it had insufficient memory to fix them. I assume that is because Bart PE runs only on the RAM. I am unable to view any of the data on the HDD when using Bart PE

When I use the Knoppix Live CD(v 5.1.1), the OS is able to access the files on the HDD. I am able to access both the Desktop and My Documents folders as well as open the documents and files located there. The problem that I have is that when I boot to Knoppix , I am only given write access…something about Knoppix not being able to write to NTFS… However, I was not able to copy files from my desktop to my jumpdrive (which uses FAT) Perhaps this has been changed in more recent versions of Knoppix, I don't know? This means that I cannot edit or change any files or settings through this method. It has only proven that the majority (if not all) of the actual data on the HDD is uncorrupted.

I was going to try to run chkdsk through Knoppix ( \windows\system32\chkdsk.exe) but I believe I'd run into the same problem I did with Bart PE…insufficient memory to make the corrections.

Perhaps I can ask around at work if anyone has a Dell recovery CD to try to run chkdsk.

Thank you again for your help, and I'll let you know whether I can borrow a Dell CD, and whether a restore or a chkdsk worked or not.

Well i'm not sure about that dell recovery cd -i thought that should be made while the os was running- !

you said your running winXP sp2 right!

Well try to borrow that CD from a friend and boot in repair console blablabla .. don't forget about the "fixboot" that will overwrite the boot.ini file in C: with a new one.

or you can download and burn it if you have the time :)

–

and about Knoppix, i think you should mount those partitions with read/write access, i know how its done in fedora .. don't know about Knoppix :|

and np B)