Problem With Pc Bootup

[MacRS200]

When my son tries to boot up his PC it does all the usual BIOS stuff, tries to start up XP and then the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death" with the error message UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME.

Is this likely to be a hard disk failure or corrupt XP files or even both. No new hardware or software has been added.

Thanks in advance.

[aido]

Could be the partition is corrupted, it's been a long time since I've used XP, but if you've got the boot CD and you try that can you see if it has a recovery console?

Basically you need something that can allow you to run chkdsk to see if it is a physical disk problem or just something that can be fixed with chkdsk to fix the problem

Here we go mate, this sounds like what I was thinking:

http://www.techtips4u.com/kb/sw/SW00014.htm

[MacRS200]

Thanks mate will give that a try.

[GreyArea]

Have a look at this link http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000630.htm and this one http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555302

[MacRS200]

Thanks chaps tried all that and no joy, it won't even list directories and files with the DIR command at the DOS prompt.

New windows install?

[GreyArea]

Before you reinstall, it's worth trying the drive in another PC, so you can retrieve any data from it.

Other than that, it's worth trying a repair, by booting from your XP CD. Skip the first repair option, and head to setup, then choose repair if it detects your existing install. This will overwrite your Windows install, but preserve your data files.

Another trick, boot from the CD, choose recovery console and try typing fixmbr and fixboot. This will repair the boot sector and Master Boot Record

[MacRS200]

Before you reinstall, it's worth trying the drive in another PC, so you can retrieve any data from it.

Other than that, it's worth trying a repair, by booting from your XP CD. Skip the first repair option, and head to setup, then choose repair if it detects your existing install. This will overwrite your Windows install, but preserve your data files.

Another trick, boot from the CD, choose recovery console and try typing fixmbr and fixboot. This will repair the boot sector and Master Boot Record

Thanks for the help mate.

All important data is backed up on an external drive so no worries there, tried fixboot and that did not work, twas on one of the sites I was pointed to, did not know about the fixmbr.

Gone for a re-install anyway and it did not detect the previous one so guess the whole thing was fooked.

Thanks again for the replies :D

Got 9 minutes to go to end of install, then it's all the new drivers etc to go

[GreyArea]

Sounds like you've lost a lot of files. Might be worth running a disc checker to make sure you haven't got any bad sectors. What make is the drive? You can download a utility from most drive manufactures which will test your drive's health.

Good luck installing SP2 and all the updates - it takes hours!

[MacRS200]

Sounds like you've lost a lot of files. Might be worth running a disc checker to make sure you haven't got any bad sectors. What make is the drive? You can download a utility from most drive manufactures which will test your drive's health.

Good luck installing SP2 and all the updates - it takes hours!

Yeh been there on the updates before

Will scandisk do for checking for bad sectors and locking them off?

[GreyArea]

Will scandisk do for checking for bad sectors and locking them off?

It will, but it's far better to download a specific tool from the hard drive manufacturer. This will look at the SMART data and give an analysis of the drive, plus you can scan the entire surface of the disc. When I get a failure like this, I like to set the drive back to factory settings (overwrite entire disc with zeros) as data is remarkably persistent and I've had new Windows installs pick up old Windows data and cause problems. It is also better at marking out bad sectors than the Windows tool, and will give you a better idea of the health of the drive. Some can be run from Windows (Western Digital), others need to be run from a bootable CD, or a floppy disc. The Western Digital one will work on other drives, to a limited extent, probably best not used for repairing, and can be downloaded from here