Unmountable boot Volume

I am having a problem with my laptop with the blue screen of death. I have an unmountable boot volume error. I have already run chkdsk c: / r but it stop at 54% an indicates that my disk is unrepairable. I ran it again and it only made it to 25%.

IBM thinkpad
Windows XP Pro
(Sorry do not know which SP but I have done all the updates)

I had the same error early last month on two seperate occations but it seemed to go away on its own. I would just reboot and it would work. All the threads I have read have mentioned that chkdsk will solve the problem 90% of the time. Any suggestions for my beating the odds?

 

Sounds like your HD is going/gone bad. I think it is time to replace the drive if you have been having recurring problems.

Often, letting things cool down will give you a few boots. Try unplugging and removing battery and letting sit overnight. Then you can try a couple of times to boot it.

Other option might be to get the HD diagnostic tool from the HD manufacturer's website (some are listed here but manufacturer's website will give you most current version). You want the bootable DOS CD version. It should have an extended or Long test that can try to repair errors on the drive that sometimes works better than chkdsk. But if your boot files are damaged you may have to repair your XP installation.

 

Sorry, I misread this error as "No OS found". The steps I mentioned for letting cool down are for a bad HD not Unmountable Boot Volume.
Please disregard.

It couldn't hurt at some time in the future to run the HD diagnostic to rule out that a failing HD is causing repeated corruption of your boot files.

 

I agree with running the diagnostic tool.

It does still sound to me like the hard drive is failing, so I would highly recommend backing up all of your documents and files that you wish to keep, just in case.

If it is the hard drive that is failing, don't get too worried about it. A new hard drive is very easy to install and should cost no more than £40 for adecent sized (200GB) one.

 

I was able to get one more boot up the other day and backed it up but now nothing again. My new hard drive is installed and working fine. Thanks for the help everyone.

 

Just to confirm, everything is working fine for you?

If so, glad we could help.

 

Sorry...yes everything is working fine now. I was able to save all the needed information on my old harddrive with that last gasp it gave me and the new hard drive is up and running fine. It also proved a valuable lesson to me on backing up my files. Thanks to all again.

 

Glad it's all working for you.

I hope you have no more problems.