Help - Unmountable Boot Volume error

[jeremy365]

I defragged last night using Win XP's default utility. When it completed I rebooted and got a Unmountable Boot Volume error. I can't boot into safe mode or even the Welcome To Setup screen when booting to my XP CD.

Any ideas?

TIA

 

[prince_vegeta]

You say you can't boot off your XP CD? Is it set in your BIOS to boot off CD before attempting to boot off of HDD? Also check to see your BIOS is actually picking up your hdd. If you finally do get into recovery console, you need to do a chkdsk /r im guessing your seen this already Unmountable boot volume
Mick

 

[Guest]

The best way to fix the problem is by running Check Disk with all options checked from another XP computer. You hard drive could be starting to fail.

Grumpy

 

[jeremy365]

Ok thanks.
Can I hook up and boot to an old HDD w/ an XP install on it and then plug in my problem HDD as a secondary HDD to perform the Chkdsk?

 

[prince_vegeta]

You can put your problem HDD into any PC that is booting up fine with win2k, winxp or win2k3.
Make sure to set the jumpers to secondary/slave on the HDD otherwise it won't show up. If it doesn't show up once youv booted up into windows, you can check in computer management to see if it is being detected by the OS.
control panel -> administrative tools -> computer managment -> disk management.
mick

 

[jeremy365]

Thanks, I'll give it a shot tomorrow night and report back.

 

[jeremy365]

Ok, reporting back- I'm getting an error when I go to Chkdsk.

I hooked up an old HDD with XP on it, booted to it and set the problem HDD in slave position. The problem HDD has two partitions, which I called Primary (the partition I Defrag'd and where my OS is located) and Secondary.

I booted into Safe mode w/ Networking and am working from there now.
Initially, my computer recognized my old HDD which I booted from, and my Secondary drive. It viewed my Primary drive as a "Local Disk". Sometime between the time I booted and now it is seeing the drive as it should "Primary", but before it said it wasn't even formatted. At the current moment I can view the files on the Primary drive.

Here's what happened when I went to Chkdsk the problem, "Primary" drive-

Should I try to do the Checkdisk when I'm not in Safe mode??
I'm not sure what to try at this point.

Thanks for your help in advance-

 

[jeremy365]

Ok- I rebooted out of Safe mode into normal windows mode and before I got all the way booted up, Windows initiated a Chksdsk on E: (the problem drive where my Boot.ini is located).

It found and repaired 4 problems.

I powered off and booted to my problem drive, it fired up w/ no problems.

I'm thinking the HDD might be failing, not sure, next step is to get a new HDD and back up all my data.

Thanks for everyone's help in getting this resolved.