PC Question - UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

[mrblackbat]

OK, so I've got a gig tomorrow. Went for rehearsal last night and got a blue screen of death with "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME".

 

Oh dear.

 

Spent half the night trying to sort it, and find another SATA compatible machine to copy my data off (backups are out of date ) to no avail, and last command I ran was "CHKDSK /f" from the Windows recovery console.

 

This morning it's booted ok.

 

Is it gonna be ok for tomorrow?

[Robbert]

My experiences: when a HD starts to tick or makes funny noises, gets louder, or like what you experience booting failure, it's definitely time to buy a new one.


But since it's SATA, you still have warranty?

[dot-dot-dot]

Pass. Make sure the drive is properly in place, and if you possibly can, do a backup and reinstall onto a new drive.

[mrblackbat]

It's not making any funny noises. I've not had any problems with it at all - it's just over a year old.

But as I said, it's functioning OK at the moment. So, do I try and rebuild today, or leave it til after the gig?

[dot-dot-dot]

If you think you can do it without panicing, do - you should have enough time. Plus then you'll have the old one as a backup.

[mrblackbat]

Have to see whether I've time etc. I checked the warranty on the drive - it's 3 years.

Not what I need.

[Robbert]

HD's hardly die the same day that errors occur. I have had about ten discs, and when they permanently failed they all had issues for weeks or even months. So, no hurry, but don't wait to long

[mrblackbat]

Originally posted by Robbert HD's hardly die the same day that errors occur. I have had about ten discs, and when they permanently failed they all had issues for weeks or even months. So, no hurry, but don't wait to long

Ok, well I'll leave it for the gig, then contact Western Digital next week to see if I can get a replacement.

And back the rest of my stuff up.

All this made for a great night's sleep last night, anyway.........

[bobby yarrow]

I've definitely had them die without warning. But, like living things, they tend to either suffer a sickness unto death, or some sudden catastrophe.

I'd image the disc, using ghost or the other one (which I actually use, but can't recall the name of), and buy a replacement disc to have around in any event.

[mrblackbat]

Originally posted by bobby yarrow I've definitely had them die without warning. But, like living things, they tend to either suffer a sickness unto death, or some sudden catastrophe. I'd image the disc, using ghost or the other one (which I actually use, but can't recall the name of), and buy a replacement disc to have around in any event.

 

 

Question about imaging the disk - will the image contain the disk errors (assuming there are some)?

[bobby yarrow]

In my experience, discs fail for hardware reasons, so no.

I should say, I'm not an I.T. giant. I run my (small) office network and 3 computers here at home, and in the process have had to replace more than my share of discs, but my experience may or may not be typical.

The software I use is acronis 'true image.' The coffee is slowly kicking in . . .

[mrblackbat]

OK thanks. Well I'll be buying a copy of either that or Ghost over the weekend. Anyway, I'm on a half day so off the pub for some much needed nerve calming alcohol.

Must take regular backups, must take regular backups.....

[Robbert]

Originally posted by mrblackbat OK thanks. Well I'll be buying a copy of either that or Ghost over the weekend. Anyway, I'm on a half day so off the pub for some much needed nerve calming alcohol. Must take regular backups, must take regular backups.....

Yeah, me too.

I have one side of my computer always open, so it's a little dusty inside.
So. Last saturday I was working and a two inch flame came out of the case. It scared the {censored} out of me, so I immidiately shut down the computer and looked around. My fan had stopped working, hehe.

Need to backup 20 GB of MP3 files that I collected. It would've ruined months and months of searching

[T113]

Re: STOP: UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

Whatever caused this occured (spelling?) the last time you used the pc (notebook?).

Did the power go out?
Did it get dropped/knocked over?

The fact that you got to that point is encouraging, and chkdsk probably fixed it. I'm thinking chkdsk /R (*not sure /f is a valid switch since win 98 days).

Anyway, within windows, go to MY COMPUTER, right click the hard drive in question, select properties.

Select the TOOLS tab at the top, the click the 'check now' button. Check the two checkboxes, then click START.

It will tell you it can't do that while windows is running, and ask if you want to do that at the next reboot. Say yes.

Reboot.

It may take some time, depending on the speed/size/condition of the hard drive in question. Go have a sandwich or something.

If you go to START-->SETTINGS-->CONTROL PANEL (start --> control panel on XP), then Administrative Tools --> Event Viewer, (if you don't see Administrative Tools in XP, click the 'Classic View' option on the left panel).

In the System Event Log, if you're having serious hard drive problems, you may see it listed repeatedly, something to the effect of 'The device (whatever) has a bad block.'

Personally, I'd suspect you just needed a good chkdsk, run the one above, and DO A BACKUP to cd/dvd of stuff you can't stand to lose, and you'll probably be ok.

Of course, if the drive is under warranty, Western Digimus will probably want you to d/l and run their DLG utilities, which will check the drive for errors and build a report. They'll base whether they warranty the drive or not on what that utility reports. I'd strongly suggest a backup of some sort before doing this. If the drive is 'borderline', stress-testing it might just push it over the edge.

Anyway, GL.

[Robbert]

Incorrect shutdown usually triggers scandisc the next time a Windows computer boots up.
A blue screen is scary {censored} and youdon't see that often anymore, only with bad drivers or bad hardware.

[T113]

only with bad drivers or bad hardware.

 

 

Your statement is a bit...restrictive.

 

I've owned my own PC service company for 7 years now.

I've seen UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME and INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE more than a few times, just from power outages.

[bobby yarrow]

Every computer should have 2 HD's in it. They're cheap as chips, no reason not to do it. Then use synchback (free) or any other software to backup files daily, and keep an image of your C drive tucked away on a portable or something.

Backing up is easy.

[Robbert]

Originally posted by T113 Your statement is a bit...restrictive. I've owned my own PC service company for 7 years now. I've seen UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME and INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE more than a few times, just from power outages.

I seriously have my doubts that is a good thing, because, unless you know otherwise, scandisc is supposed to start at the beginning of a new session when a previous session was shut down uncorrect.

But hey, they are computers

[T113]

Never said a disk error is a good thing.
Scandisk doesn't exist since '98/ME.
Sometimes NT/2K/XP will run a chkdsk on boot, but I've seen it plug merrily along w/disk errors for months until something catastrophic happens, which could be the case for the original poster. When that happens, it's 50/50. Either the registry/drivers are screwed, or the chkdsk makes all better.

[Robbert]

Yeah.. I said scandisc but I should've mentioned chkdsk. Old habbits

[Erocku]

I do onsite computer repair for a living and see this alot.

Unmountable Boot Volume errors are not hardware related. I was a problem that would happen on Pre-Service Pack 1 Machines when the file system was corrupt. So now that it is running, update windows xp to Service Pack 1 or 2.

You can normally boot off of a Windows XP CD and hit "R" to go into the repair console. From there you can type "fixboot" and then run "chkdsk /p" and that will allow you to boot back up into windows.

[T113]

+1