Windows Boot Disk

quackers

quackers

quackers

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I got a call from a client this morning about their daughter's Pc going loopy, i get down to find it wont boot at all, wont go past mup.sys in safe mode and is showing "unmountable_boot_volume" :eek:

I've tried the Xp Disk recovery route, the c partition is showing as unknown! Doesnt give you the option to repair the installation.

As a final throw of the dice, i'm looking for a xp boot disk, as i'm thinking there is something virus related here.

Can anyone recommend one? I'm downloading Hiren's 9.2 at the moment and i'm just about to try 911cd boot disk. Are they any good?

thanks all
 
bartpe, but seems to me that you might have a HD failed, have you tried putting the hard drive into another PC ? to see if you can access it there ?
 
Had this one quite recently on the work laptop.

Boot into recovery console and run
Code: 
chkdsk /P
If that fails, get ubcd and do a HDD surface scan to check that the disk is not trashed.

If the disk is fine, then mount it in another machine. If you have a linux box, you may be able to mount the disk in that and recover the files directly, if not, then you'll likely need a third party tool like getdataback to recover any files.
 
As i said in the first post, the recovery console isnt there and the partition is showing as unknown.

I've burnt hiren's boot cd and it boots from it, when i try and load one of the anti virus programs it doenst seem to work. It has loads of problems loading the drivers then you end up with a dos prompt and no anti virus.

I'm confused, just trying to find some instructions. Anyone got any ideas?
 
quackers said:
As i said in the first post, the recovery console isnt there and the partition is showing as unknown.
Click to expand...

Your first post was slightly ambiguous - recovery / repair installation are different routes.

I've burnt hiren's boot cd and it boots from it, when i try and load one of the anti virus programs it doenst seem to work. It has loads of problems loading the drivers then you end up with a dos prompt and no anti virus.

I'm confused, just trying to find some instructions. Anyone got any ideas?
Click to expand...

don't bother with an av just now - that's extremely unlikely to make any difference.

Read my post and follow the instructions. ubcd has lots of useful tools for this - at least one of which will be able to tell you if the disk itself is trashed.
 
I've already ran all the dell diagonistics on the drive itself, they all come back fine.

I'm just trying to get ubcdwin to create the iso file
 
quackers said:
I've already ran all the dell diagonistics on the drive itself, they all come back fine.

I'm just trying to get ubcdwin to create the iso file
Click to expand...

If the dell diagnostics came back fine - ubcd will more than likely do the same.

In which case - mount the disk in another box (as said before - if you have a linux box around, try that first) , recover the data.

You will more than likely have to reinstall the OS - HOWEVER - if the mft (and the mirror) has corrupted, this is a sign that the disk itself is dieing... so if you're going to use the same disk again - MAKE SURE YOU KEEP BACKUPS!

My recommendation is recover the data and replace the drive. If you don't, you'll likely be going through this process again in a few weeks/months.
 
Why are you running repair console?

Forget that, use normal XP disc to boot from, let it go through installation and you should then see the drive(s). At this stage you can choose to repair an installation or delete the partition and start again (as if you were installing XP for the first time).

I find recovery console more hassle than its worth sometimes.
 
Butters said:
Why are you running repair console?

Forget that, use normal XP disc to boot from, let it go through installation and you should then see the drive(s). At this stage you can choose to repair an installation or delete the partition and start again (as if you were installing XP for the first time).

I find recovery console more hassle than its worth sometimes.
Click to expand...

What???? Recovery console is far better than a repair installation!!

Recovery console will not b0rk the computer more.

Also - as I have said before - if the mft and mirror have corrupted, there is a very good chance that the disk is dieing. what's the point of repairing the install so he can go through tis again in the future? (and the next time, the disk may have hard read errors - which means getting the data back will be very expensive)
 
Last edited:
.walls said:
What???? Recovery console is far better than a repair installation!!

Recovery console will not b0rk the computer more.

Also - as I have said before - if the mft and mirror have corrupted, there is a very good chance that the disk is dieing. what's the point of repairing the install so he can go through tis again in the future? (and the next time, the disk may have hard read errors - which means getting the data back will be very expensive)
Click to expand...

Don't be silly. The OP has said he has ran the diagnostics on his drive so that suggests that all is well. If it's a SATA drive remember to install your drivers (press F6 while booting the XP CD) and as Butters has said try a repair. Using the recovery console won't help unless it's just the boot block gone.



M.
 
well the good news is i manged to save the installation, when i ran the the ubcd4win disk, it couldnt see the c: drive. Got that going by running chkdsk/f, just a case then of sorting out the mbr.

Seems to be working ok so far, thanks for the help in this thread
 
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