UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME - Major Data Loss - Please help!

ArkadyGr

OSNN Newbie
Joined
17 Feb 2005
Messages
6
I have an IBM TP T23 ... foolishly I left it online for downloads for 2 days without supervision. When I got home it had a blue screen. Now when I turn it on it stops for a about 30 seconds at the Windows XP splash screen, I could hear Hard drive grinding a bit over and over with the same intervals each time. Then the Blue screen splashes for about 5 to 10 seconds - "A problem has occured and Windows has shut down in order to prevent further damage" or something liek that and it sais "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME" .. then a bunch of text and a stop address 0x00000, I think and some more numbers in teh parentacies. When booting from windows XP CD and trying the repair console it gets to the C prompt but no further operations could be done - tryed to chnage directories and it doesn find any once existing directories, DIR command returns some other error. I had almost 30 gigs worth of executables on it. Am I completely screwd?

Thanks for everyones time.
 
More or less you're boned. It could either be your motherboard (southbridge controller) or the hard drive itself either way, something/everything's probably damaged.
 
I would buy a new hard drive and then install a fresh copy of XP on it. Then put your old hdd into the system and try to backup everything off of it before(if not to late) it craps out on you.
 
i take it you have done a chkdsk?
9 times out of 10 it will fix the bluescreen error, (unless the HD has totally died)
 
zeke_mo said:
I would buy a new hard drive and then install a fresh copy of XP on it. Then put your old hdd into the system and try to backup everything off of it before(if not to late) it craps out on you.
I was about to suggest something similar until I realized that he's talking about a ThinkPad.

Something else you could try would be to get a laptop ide/parallel ide adapter, hook the hard drive up to a desktop pc and see if there's anything salvageable.
 
i think i had a problem like this...i THINK. i got passed it by reformatting, but i had no problem doing that cuz i had partitions with the important data. im guessing this isnt the case :(

my ideas are these:

1) download a bootable linux distro and burn it to a cd in another pc. boot from that distro and get into the hard drive and copy everything over a network (im guessing the NIC on the laptop will be detected) and then reformat your drive.

2) u can try getting the hard drive out of the laptop and connecting it to another pc. u can buy a kit which converts the laptop drive into a usb mountable device, so u connect it to another pc and get the data off that. once again, after ur done u will have to reformat.

hope something helps :)

Apu
 
Thanks every one! Esspecially kC!

I have considered attaching the laptop HDD to my PC .. I alredy ordered the adapter ... now waiting. I was gonna use one of the HDD recovery software offered online - Stellar or R-Studio, one of those. When i booted from Floppy into DOS I couldnt switch to C drive. I didint even think about CHKDSK, because at the Recovery Consol's C prompt I coudnt change directories nor could I list the directories with DIR comand - in both cases it would give me a few grinds of the same patern when it would try to boot windows before going to blue screen, so i asumed that it cant read this way, for whatever reason, and thats that. And when reading kC's responce ... I was gonna say "dude! what CHKDSK? I cant boot into windows!" .. and then I was like wait a minute ... the XP CD Recovery COnsole sees the C drive - I did the CHKDSK /R .. it gave the usual pattern of grinds and then started making all kinds of "normal" noises lol .. and the perecantages started runing. It got stuck a few times at 57% 64% and 71% for about 10 min each.. got me a bit worried.. but it finished .. spit out the report ... and I booted up my windows .. HOLY S#$% !

I alredy got a new drive though .. so i guess ill just back up all my needed files, and wont risk it with this HDD anymore.

FORUMS ROck! Live and learn. :) The IBM tech said that "the HDD is caput" lol exact words ... i guess i can teach him now a thing or two with his 50K or so a year. Anyway thanks guys. Will be back often to learn and help others.
 
another satisfied customer.
good job osnn :up:
 
ArkadyGr said:
i guess i can teach him now a thing or two with his 50K or so a year. Anyway thanks guys.

If you think he makes 50K, you're sadly mistaken.
 
wait i have fixed this in 2k so many times. all you need is a 2k disk and pop it in the go to the second repair option and select boot rebuild or something like that. something boot. it will repaire it.. i only half read this but i dont think anyone said this. ( use XP cd im sure it has the option)
 
You mean Chkdsk actually did something useful? Call the papers! It was utterly useless in NT4 and pretty much in 2k so I never bother with it anymore but it seems MS actually made it do something other than waste time in XP. Anyhow, cool the thinkpad's working again.
 
hey check disk is running on m comp now and recovering some bad clusters. so.. go M$
 
yeh get this a lot at work...

makes me wonder why if it comes up ms dont make it do a chkdsk automtically
 
_kC_ said:
yeh get this a lot at work...

makes me wonder why if it comes up ms dont make it do a chkdsk automtically

Well - I guess a BSOD is a BSOD is a BSOD - hard to start he OS from one of those, but seriously, there could be situations where it is genuinely unmountable and cannot be recovered - although I suspect even those do not necessarily mean data loss (more likely fried partition table).

Having recently recovered myself a Maxtor 120 drive from same error seeing how this thread panned out was no surprise to me - I was kinda waiting in teh wings Arkady to come in and help if you didn't get there with the help you already had.

glad you did, welcome to OSNN - it's a great place to hang out and learn, enjoy :)
 

Members online

No members online now.

Latest profile posts

Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
Xie wrote on Electronic Punk's profile.
Impressed you have kept this alive this long EP! So many sites have come and gone. :(

Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
Electronic Punk wrote on Sazar's profile.
Rest in peace my friend, been trying to find you and finally did in the worst way imaginable.

Forum statistics

Threads
62,015
Messages
673,494
Members
5,621
Latest member
naeemsafi
Back