unmountable_boot_volume
OS: XP Pro
this started when i went to uninstally my Symantec Client Firewall. in the past, doing this had taken with it all ability to perform any network activity, so i figured i'd do a repair install right after and fix whatever doing this unistall broke. the repair install resulted in this error.
i've run chkdsk /r several times, the wierd thing is that it seems to find more errors after every reboot. i've also run fixboot, and attempted to start in safe mode and every other startup option, none of them work. it seems to crash when it gets to agp440.sys, although i have a feeling this particular file has nothing to do with my problem.
i also ran fixboot, all from the recovery console.
it doesn't seem to be a hardware failure, because my linux dual-boot works just fine (in fact thats where im typing this). however, just to alleviate suspicions, i've already run memtest and its FINE.
im wondering what i can do to get this windows install back on the ground without losing the registry, although if that has to go, i'll be okay, as long as i can keep certain files.
i was thinking about maybe installing windows on top of itself, as it seems to me that would wipe whatever the problem causing element is, and would give me a chance to run partitionmagic in order to make room to dump my files somewhere
on a side note, why the hell does my linux install no longer detect its swap partition?
this started when i went to uninstally my Symantec Client Firewall. in the past, doing this had taken with it all ability to perform any network activity, so i figured i'd do a repair install right after and fix whatever doing this unistall broke. the repair install resulted in this error.
i've run chkdsk /r several times, the wierd thing is that it seems to find more errors after every reboot. i've also run fixboot, and attempted to start in safe mode and every other startup option, none of them work. it seems to crash when it gets to agp440.sys, although i have a feeling this particular file has nothing to do with my problem.
i also ran fixboot, all from the recovery console.
it doesn't seem to be a hardware failure, because my linux dual-boot works just fine (in fact thats where im typing this). however, just to alleviate suspicions, i've already run memtest and its FINE.
im wondering what i can do to get this windows install back on the ground without losing the registry, although if that has to go, i'll be okay, as long as i can keep certain files.
i was thinking about maybe installing windows on top of itself, as it seems to me that would wipe whatever the problem causing element is, and would give me a chance to run partitionmagic in order to make room to dump my files somewhere
on a side note, why the hell does my linux install no longer detect its swap partition?
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Comments
Last option does a journal rebuild, try that, please. Good luck.
ATM, if that does not work, you get to try the mfr's util set for your HD, see if that can help some or at least pinpoint hardware as issue. If not hardware, maybe a Repair Install. But that is a maybe.... This did not happen right after you installed Linux, did it???
John.
Baron: A Repair install keeps your registry intact, it just installs lots of the default files over everything else and defaults certain settings.
It sounds like the drive is either damaged or the partition tables are scrambled for some reason. Can you run an fdisk in Linux and see what it says your partition table is like? Just to see what is going on.
If it was a driver for the controller itself, you would be getting an "inaccessable_boot_device" message rather than what you are actually getting, so that partially rules that out.
to both of you, in the windows recovery console, the only chkdsk parameters are /r and /p, /r implies /p. the /r option seems to fix all problems on a current boot, as i can run it again and it will find no errors, however after a reboot the problems have returned. what bothers me is that windows gets about halfway through booting up -- it gets to agp440.sys, and THEN hangs.
i'll head off to run that fdisk
and to Ageek, no this did not happen when i did the linux install, up until now my dual boot setup has been just fine. the ONLY thing i did on the last boot was uninstall my SYmantec Client Firewall which, like i said, seems to like to take all my networking capabilities with it
however, the quick-scan completed without errors, so i'm not expecting much from the full scan. i'll get back to you in an hour though.
i may be able to find another drive to use as temp storage for stuff i want to keep, but assuming i cant... can you guys think of any alternatives?
One silly little "gotcha" thing.... Did you put the multiboot on the XP HD???? If so, recovery console from CD cannot find the XP boot routine and might not be able to login in recovery console. This gotcha has messed up a bunch of multibooters.
So unless the Symantec Firewall in fact pulled all networking with it as associated files in scripting, AND the agp440.sys thing, that alone does not account for what happened.
John.
yes, i have the multiboot on the XP HD. however, this hasn't caused a problem before (ive done repairs before while keeping the same bootloader intact) and i had no problem logging into the recovery console (except remembering my admin PW, hehe). i'm pretty sure my multi-boot is fine, it gave me hell getting it installed
i know i haven't mentioned before, this is all on a wd2000jb running on the included promise ata controller. i did infact try running it off the IDE channel however, this didn't fix the problem. and YES, i have been correctly using the drivers when booting off the XP cd.
[root@localhost thebaron]# /sbin/fdisk -l
Disk /dev/hdk: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdk1 * 1 19761 158730201 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdk2 19762 19774 104422+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdk3 19775 24191 35479552+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdk4 24192 24321 1044225 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdk5 24192 24321 1044193+ 82 Linux swap
edit: well, as a side effect i can now mount my windows partition from linux, and i fixed my swap file.
can someone tell me if theres a partition magic like utility that will let me resize ntfs partitions from linux? the source-forge ntfs drivers i have are read-only, so i could safely copy my .iso's and .mp3's to my linux partition, only its too small for that to work.
final update: alright, well i found a workaround, albeit not the best one i'm sure. what i ended up doing was installing xp on top of itself. it asks you if you want to clear out the folder, i say yes. once im booted up, i had to reinstall partition magic, then i had to fix my partition tables and mbr, since reinststalling windows fubared grub. so with partitionmagic i cleaned out linux, shrunk my primary windows partition, set up a new partition scheme so this wouldn't be this much of a problem in the future. i'm currently transferring files, and downloading fedora.
thanks guys