Unmountable_boot_volume

I think my C Drive is finally starting to pack it in.

After shutting down the computer fine one day, I restarted the next time to get a blue screen of death saying

'UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME'
.....
'Stop: 0x000000ED (0x8AF92900, 0xC000009C, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)'

Googled it.

Tried getting to the Recovery Console on start up but it goes to the blue screen of death just after it appears to load the Recovery Console up.

Hmmm.

Tried burning a CD of the recovery console and booting it from the CD. That worked. When i got the recovery console up and running, USUALLY (cuz i've seen this in the youtuve videos) when i go to the recovery console i should be prompted at C:WINDOWS. this is not the case. i am taken to C:. So i tried running chkdsk /r from just that and it says this

'THE VOLUME APPEARS TO CONTAIN ONE OR MORE UNRECOVERABLE PROBLEMS.'

Hmmm. I don't want to try any other commands so I'm hoping someone out there can help me on it.

A Friend recommended I boot from Ubuntu mounted to a CD. That worked. However when i click into the Home folder and try and access the C drive, it stalls for a bit and then this comes up:

'Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 13: ntfs_attr_pread_i: ntfs_pread failed: Input/output error
Failed to read NTFS $Bitmap: Input/output error
NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a
SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very
important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation
for more details'

I know this is gonna be a tough one, I'd love to get this hard drive repaired and am willing to go to whatever lengths to repair it.

Attached are a DXDiag file that was done just a few months prior to the incident.

Any help out there greatly appreciated!
Thanks

 

Get an XP install disk or Recover console disk and do a chkdsk/f from the command prompt. It may be a chkdsk/p if done from the install disk or Recovery Console disk. If that does not work, do a chkdsk/r from the command prompt.

 

A couple of thoughts. If this is the same computer you opened up this morning, check that the HD cable is snug at both motherboard and the HD connector.

And if you can't get any chkdsk /letter to run as tgell suggested then try just a plain chkdsk command to see if you still get the error without trying to fix the problems.

 

Clone it, before you can't.

 

The chkdsk doesn't really work, it just keeps saying:

'THE VOLUME APPEARS TO CONTAIN ONE OR MORE UNRECOVERABLE PROBLEMS.'

Ran the hard drive diagnostic utility and it said this:

'IDE Drive Diagnostic Utility running, please wait....

SATA 1st Master: WDC WD1600JS-75NCB3 -Pass
SATA 2nd Master: TSSTcorp DVD+/-RW T -Diagnostic not supported
SATA 3rd Master: No IDE Device
SATA 4th Master: No IDE Device

Test complete, press Enter to reboot'

This mean anything interesting?

 

Is WD's own diagnostic utility? It could mean that the drive is bad even though it says it passed or the NTFS is so badly corrupted that chkdsk could not fix it. Can you install the drive in another computer? If so, then you can use power data recovery to see if any info can be pulled off it. First GB is free but make sure all data is copied to another drive and not back to the corrupted one.

http://majorgeeks.com/MiniTool_Power_Data_Recovery_Free_Edition_d7451.html

 

I don't have access to another desktop PC for installing the drive to at the moment.

I'm kind of half thinking bout formatting the drive and reinstalling XP. Kinda sick of waiting around, i managed to recover data of the back up drive via Ubuntu.

There's a few things on the main one (that i can't access) i would have liked to recover like Cubase etc. but I think those can easily be obtained again.

My PC came with a Windows XP Professional install disc, but unfortunately I've lost it. I've burned a recent version of it onto a CD-R, i'm assuming I can reinstall windows using this?

Any advice on formatting and reinstalling XP?

 

Well, I would zero out the drive using a bootable disk like Partition Wizard. It gives the option to wipe the drive. Then I would use it to partition and reformat. One thing to remember, XP does not have native SATA drivers. These are usually installed using the F6 option or slipstreaming the drivers using Nlite. Another option is to see if there is a BIOS setting of IDE mode under the sata controller.

Edit: You will need your XP key and will have to activate XP.

 

I am currently in the process of reinstalling.
I've just deleted the partition at C: and am about to click enter to install

there are other partitions here too:

-: Partition [FAT] 63 MB < 54 MB free >
Unpartitioned space 111176 MB
D: Partition 4 <Backup> [NTFS] 38123 MB < 7451 MB free >
F: Partition 3 [FAT 32] 3224 MB < 912 MB free >

I am gonna click ENTER on the unpartitioned space.

The product key is on a sticker on the top of my desktop. I should be ok using this



Not sure i follow you about the SATA. Is this an important issue after it has reinstalled?

 

Some BIOS's have an auto mode for IDE/SATA but if you install XP and get a blue screen then it is likely due to the SATA drivers not being available. I think just deleting C and reformatting is probably a good idea. You may get the data back on the other partitions. I am not sure what that 63MB FAT partition is though.

 

Reinstalled XP. It didn't ask me for a product key though, I am assuming it is because of the XP Professional i downloaded from the torrent site.

I've successfully loaded onto the desktop, but i have no drivers for sound or audio, my video card needs drivers too. along with all the other drivers i need to get things back in gear.

Tried copying some drivers to an external hard drive, but that damn thing needs drivers in order for it to work on the PC too! i'm stuck. Can't get any drivers onto the Comp to install.

Crap

 

Being that your XP was from a torrent site, not sure if the moderators are going to lock the thread of not. I would start a new thread in the Drivers section. Just state you need drivers, it's a new install and what your make and model of the computer is. Also what devices show as having yellow exclamation marks in Device Manager.

 

Ok, Sorry about that. I didn't really have a choice. My XP disc is long gone, i've had this machine for 6+ years.

I have an idea of how to go about fixing this, so i'll go on my own for now, if i need help i'll do as you said.

Thanks!

 

Since posting the query I had decided to format the drive and reinstall Windows XP (using a friend's copy, as my copy had been lost since about 2007!). This worked, after the formatting and the reinstalling it successfully booted to the desktop. This time though, I hadn't any drivers for audio, video, chipset etc.. which was a bit weird. I didn't have the resource CD on me so i had to manually start installing drivers from the net. after trying to install the nvidia drivers for my video card, it had an error and i had to reboot. Upon rebooting, unfortunately AGAIN i was not able to boot to the desktop

So i formatted the drive and reinstalled Windows XP AGAIN, this time during installation process it said:

The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application.

Tried formatting and reinstalling and this happened AGAIN.

I think the hard drive has pretty much died. There may be a very technical solution to this, but I think the hard drive has run its course.

I am gonna replace it.

Thanks for your help though, I appreciate it

 

Thanks for the feedback. Does sound like the hard drive is going. Just for the fun of it, I would try installing Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and see if you get the same issues. Another good linix distro would be Linux Mint 13 "Maya" - Cinnamon.