Unique unmountable boot volume error

RPG-Fan

I work at circuit city and generally dont run into this problem with my installations, but one of my personal friends obtained a used computer, a hp a320n we reformatted a 120 gb hard drive for him and everything was working fine... until he wanted to try an old video card. the first problem was that he disabled his system monitor going through display properties, monitor, advanced and then switched the device usage to disable on the monitor. so naturally when he restarted his computer he saw nothing. so i switched his bios settings so that it would go through a pci graphics card, (which turned out to not work, the graphics card had something spill on it and was defective) so now hes getting an unmountable boot volume error, however i have done the chkdsk /r on both of the volumes that pop up with an extra xp home edition cd i have, and ive also hit fixboot on both partitions, it still will not go into windows, im doing this after work on my free time and need some advice~

leishi85

if you are switching a video card, why would you need to disable his monitor???

RPG-Fan

he disabled his monitor, hes a cop trying to learn about computers and hes screwing around with it when im not there, but on the plus side, at least hes writing down what hes done (wrong) with it.

leishi85

have u tried just a repair install instead of using the recovery console??

RPG-Fan

repair install? whats the section i need to go to. im so used to just doin the recovery consol at work

leishi85

do it like you normally would when u install windows xp, and then when it scans your hdd, it will say there is a presently a version of winxp on the hdd already, and ask if you like to repair this install, and then u would press R to repai install.

what it does it basically replace all teh system files and such, but it does not mess with any of the current settings, won't delete your files.

RPG-Fan

went throught that, didnt recognize that it was formatted already with windows xp, said the partition was either too full, damage, or formatted with and incompatible drives. so back at square one

its a 120 gb drive, using about 45 gb, so its not too full, the error code it gets is one that shows that one of the drivers is messed up (0x0000032) however when i used the recovery console nothing worked.

hed prefer if it was possible to save his files, however im beginning to think a recovery might just be the best option, i doubt his hp recovery with enable a soft recovery however.

leishi85

have u tried a hdd diagnoise tool to check if his hdd is working correctly???

go to the hdd manufacture's site, they usually have utility to download and put on floppy to test the drives.

RPG-Fan

it should be fine, everything else has been performing the way it should, the error comes up about half a second after windows begings booting then says that it has been stopped to prevent damage to windows etc

TheBaron

chkdsk followed by a repair install
if neither of these things work, then go ahead and reinstall windows xp over the current xp install so that you can back everything up, then format and reinstall

RPG-Fan

when i tried to do the windows repair it wouldnt work because it doesnt recognize windows on the HD, so im guessing that if i were to try what your talking about, since it wants me to reformatt hed lose his information, putting it as a slave to try and check it out didnt work either, it does on occasion but not with this one, i suppose the data is too fragmented... though through the recovery console it does say everythings fine.

profdlp

Try TestDisk. See if it can find a recoverable partition. If it does, let it fix it.

RPG-Fan

so i download that, and burn it to a cd, leave it zipped or unzipped? then does it automatically come up before windows starts like the win xp cd?

TheBaron

thats a pretty cool proggy prof, I'll have to check that out in more detail

profdlp

RPG Fan wrote:

so i download that, and burn it to a cd, leave it zipped or unzipped? then does it automatically come up before windows starts like the win xp cd?

Download the Dos/Win9x, zip version, then extract it. Make a bootable floppy and copy the contents of the Dos folder to that disk. Boot up from the floppy, then run testdisk.exe

This will work from a bootable CD, too.

If you don't understand how to use TestDisk,
- run testdisk_win.exe or "testdisk /log /debug",
- select your hard disk,
- choose Analyse and Search!,
- at the end, choose Quit,
Send me (the author of the program)
- the testdisk.log file,
- a brief explanation about the problem and
- some information (size, label, filesystem type) about your previous partitions.

I just run the Analyse program, let it (hopefully) find the damaged partition, then have it recover it.

If you need a bootable floppy disk (ie NT, W2K, XP users), try www.bootdisk.com.

xEz3kiel

If all else fails you could always plug that harddrive into another computer as a secondary harddrive and pull the files off to another harddrive and just erase everything and start from scratch again...

profdlp

xEz3kiel wrote:

If all else fails you could always plug that harddrive into another computer as a secondary harddrive and pull the files off to another harddrive and just erase everything and start from scratch again...

He tried that (Post #11).

xEz3kiel

opps sorry about that

Maybe he can try a lower level of formating...it's pretty risky though I think because it has the heads move lower...what do you think?
Isn't there a program that will rewrite everything back to 1's and 0's? I'm not too sure I have never used it before...

profdlp

I'm sure he could just wipe the drive and start over. We're trying to help him save the data first.

xEz3kiel

couldn't he boot with knoppix and transfer them that way...i know you can read files but you can't write yet....i dont know if that version came out yet....but if he has a burner he might be able to burn the files or even transfer them over a network to another computer.

TheBaron

I doubt that would fix the problem of not being able to read files on the drive. he needs to recover the partition and file tables first

xEz3kiel

knoppix allows you to read the files so that you can move them and recover them....do it quite frequently at work...the partition seems to be hozed so I would get rid of it after your data is saved...

RPG-Fan

ive made a little headway, i tried using the recovery consol, using first chkdsk, then chkdsk /p since it said the volume was alright, and finally chkdsk /r, however when i tried enable service_boot_device, it said it couldnt due to a missing or damaged control set key, stating that the registry might be damaged. as for the test disk thing, im still working on that, last time i tried it on a cd i extracted the files and when i copied them it said it might change things without losing data, and when attempted to burn it it wouldnt go through, ill try again though. right now im working on this at work during my lunch hour so i got some extra help here too

RPG-Fan

is there a program i can also burn to make a disk with the testdisk bootable at the start similiar to the xp installation cds? or way to just do it in generall

profdlp

http://www.bootdisk.com/nero.htm has a bunch of ideas for making a bootable CD.

If the computer has a floppy drive it will be simpler to just make a bootable floppy, copy the contents of TestDisk's DOS folder to it, then boot and go.

If the TestDisk files won't fit, just copy them to a second floppy, boot from the first (bootable) floppy you made, then switch out the disks.

RPG-Fan

i got deepburner of download.com since it says it can make bootable cds etc and its free, still tryin to make the cd bootable~

RPG-Fan

i made the primary file windisk that does the application stuff etc bootable and burned it that way, hopefully that will work

anyone familiar with this burner that can specify how i would make the entire cd bootable from startup so i can see if anything is repairable on the damaged partition?

Tex

Sorry but this is really scary

"I work at circuit city"

people assume YOU know what you are doing. They are paying $60 to $100 an hour for your supposed expert advice.

And from your posts you are not even close.

Scary.

Tex

RPG-Fan

Tex wrote:

Sorry but this is really scary

"I work at circuit city"

people assume YOU know what you are doing. They are paying $60 to $100 an hour for your supposed expert advice.

And from your posts you are not even close.

Scary.

Tex

Circuit City only has us perform hardware installations, and software installations, models already in operation, im doing this for a friend, for free, and id rather ask for help and advice where needed then run around in the dark.

and we dont charge 60-100 an hour, we charge by and per installation, 20 for software, 30 for virus or spyware removal, etc

profdlp

Tex, if you'd like to be helpful I'm sure that RPG Fan would appreciate it, but the snide comments are unnecessary and do nothing to help solve the problem at hand.

RPG Fan: Since you seem determined to make a bootable CD, I'm assuming you don't have a FDD in the computer. I haven't used the CD burning software you referred to, so it will be hard to advise you on that. You might check out How to Make Bootable CDs. It's a simple two-page guide that should help you get started. Let us know how it goes.

joeclem111

joeclem111 wrote:

You might try to install LINUX on the disc. Linux runs compatibly alongside windows. If the disc accepts LINUX, you boot up on that, recover the data and then see if you can repair the windows. Otherwise, scrub the disc and start again. One of my clients successfully installed Linux on his PC (one that I had built him which was fully loaded with WIN 98) and, on boot up, it gives the Windows or Linux boot option. See how you go.