Windows XP UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME - Laptop Help Required

[wheelo]

A friend has asked me to look at his laptop, when you try boot up you get this screen(don't know how the quality is as it had to be a photo, not a screenshot, for obvious reasons). Apparently, there was no new Software or Hardware installed in the last year or so.



So i decided to try get into safe mode, from this screen



Also tried to access "Last known Good Configuration" to no avail, they both ended up with the first error screen.

Then tried to get into recovery mode from here




Get this screen, so press "R"



Which leads to here



now, should I type something at the "C Prompt", which would try to repair the current install of XP?? If I type exit, it does just that - Exit.


What I am trying to achieve is getting back into XP without formatting the hard drive as there may be some un backed up photo's on it.
It is a Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop.

Thanks in advance for any advice given 👍

 

[ferguj1]

Unmountable Boot Volume Error Message

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[TD="width: 50%"]Computer Crashes, they seem to happen at the most inconvenient times. Always when you need the computer the most. I've run across this boot error message many times since Windows XP was released and luckily most of the time this problem can be solved with a few simple steps.

Basically the error means that Windows XP is having trouble booting from Drive C. Following the steps below, you should be able to troubleshoot this problem and get your computer back and running.
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Causes of Unmountable Boot Volume

Many times this error occurs when I have swapped a hard drive and used the wrong IDE cable to connect it. If your computer uses an Ultra Direct Memory Access (UDMA) hard disk controller, and you use a standard 40-wire connector cable to connect the UDMA drive, you may experience this error. Make sure you are using the correct IDE cable.

Also, if your BIOS settings are configured to force the faster UDMA modes, this error may occur. In this situation, restart your computer and enter the BIOS and load the "fail-safe" default settings and reboot.
​

If neither of these issues are the cause for the Unmountable Boot Volume, then the issue most likely is caused by a damaged BOOT.INI file in the root directory of the boot drive or file system corruption.

Follow the steps below to correct these file system issues:

1) Start your computer with your Windows XP CD-ROM, or with Windows XP boot disks
2) When the Welcome to Setup screen appears, press R to Repair the installation using the Recovery Console
3) If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the Windows installation you want to access
4) Type the administrator password when you are prompted, if no administrator password is set then just press Enter
5) At the command prompt, type CHKDSK /R and then press Enter
6) Once CHKDSK has finished checking and repairing the hard drive, type EXIT and press Enter to restart your computer

If this procedure does not work, repeat it and use the fixboot command in step 5 instead of the chkdsk /r command. FIXBOOT writes a new partition boot sector to the system partition. The fixboot command is only available when you are using the Recovery Console.

For more information on FIXBOOT, visit the Microsoft Documentation page for FIXBOOT

 

[wheelo]

Thanks for the info and for the thread title change Ferg, I will try these solutions tomorrow and get back on and let you know how it went.

 

[sinno]

I have just done a similar one wheelo,if you type HELP or ?,it should give you a list of cmds which will be self explanatory,unfortunately with the 1 i had to do i ended up reformatting the drive,i was able to save most of the data by using a external sata station,i then used easus partition master to wipe the data and reformat the hdd,hopefully the laptop you have has a sata hdd,the one i was at had a 44 pin connector and i had to get a adaptor to make it connect to sata

 

[wheelo]

Thanks for the replies guys, didn't need to wait till toorrow to do it. the first solution "chkdsk" worked a treat, even though Ferg's repy says type "CHDSK/R" (it didn't recognise this command)

 

[sinno]

Good to hear your sorted

 

[axxxo]

I was going to suggest you do a repair with the original disc that would have came with that Dell as it looks a if vista should be on there not XP? As if the chap had try to install XP to a separate partition and couldn't recover from it, glad your sorted though.

HTC Desire S-Tapatalk

 

[ferguj1]

Happy to hear that it is sorted. I am not sure what the "/R" is about after the CHKDSK command. Perhaps someone else can shed some light on that part.

 

[HiTecK]

I had the exact same issue with someone's laptop 2 days ago using XP, chkdsk ran a test but that wont repair anything usually, it's the chkdsk/r that (R) repairs the problem, as mentioned above it didn't recognise that command and often doesn't so I just used FIXBOOT command and the laptop was fine from then on.

Glad you got it fixed wheelo 👍

 

[arncls59]

XP Repair

command I use is chkdsk /f (i.e. fix) and a space between chkdsk and /f is important.
You can when repairing from CD skip the first press R for repair console and go to the next screen
where it will detect a windows installation and ask if you want to repair windows. This option repairs all sytem files and doesn't affect installed programs and data.
this is my first post and I hope it is ok.