Help! "UNMOUNTABLE BOOT VOLUME" blue screen of death!

[gastrof]

I'm currently typing on a Windows 98 computer with a processor barely faster than a dead snail.

Why?

On the XP machine I'd been editing some videos and running some pretty heavy programs, and noticed the computer was a little slow. I figured I'd shut everything down and reboot.

Bad choice.

It's caught in a loop where it won't boot. It asks which drive I want to boot on (always does, hard drive or optical), defaults to the hard drive, then says there's a problem and it asks if I want to start in safe mode, normal, etc.

No matter what I select, it ends up giving a message that says there's a problem called "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME", and then it goes back to asking which drive I want to boot on.

I've looked up the problem online and supposedly there's a simple fix (tho' it's also called "the blue screen of death", which makes me very antzy), but it requires having a Windows disc.

My computer came with the OS installed, and while there's a restore disc, I have no idea if it's got the same features a regular Windows disc would have, including the "repair" features.

I've read ANY Windows XP disc could be used to do the fix (not an install), and a friend is willing to loan me his, but I've also read you have to be careful with certain types of computers. (Dell was given as an example. Mine isn't a Dell, but this isn't something I'd like to make worse, like wiping the drive.)

I don't want to lose the data on the hard drive (not all of it's backed up), and would appreciate any input anyone can give.

 

[Jadzia]

It sounds like the hard disk could be the problem. Since you're getting the safe mode option, it is partially working, but it may have developed a corrupted FAT, or a bad sector.

But before you try any repair, you sound like backup/salvage is a greater priority.

I would try booting the computer with a Live Knoppix CD, and then attempt to mount the hard disk within that operating system. (there are no special commands for doing this, it's just a matter of clicking on stuff) If successful, you will be able to use USB drives to copy data from the hard disk to your USB drives. But if the hard disk has a corrupted FAT, it may not show you all of your files/folders.

Note that Knoppix has firefox, and will autodetect your modem so you can log in here with that if you want to not use the win98 machine.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Follow Jadzia's advice. Back up everything you need to save. Your partition has been damaged, so you'll need to wipe it out and recreate it from scratch--which means reinstalling Windows, too.

If you have any hard drive diagnostic tools, I would suggest having them do a full scan of the drive, as well. Your problem might be a one-off screwup, but it's also possible the hardware itself is failing.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Follow Jadzia's advice. Back up everything you need to save. Your partition has been damaged, so you'll need to wipe it out and recreate it from scratch--which means reinstalling Windows, too.

If you have any hard drive diagnostic tools, I would suggest having them do a full scan of the drive, as well. Your problem might be a one-off screwup, but it's also possible the hardware itself is failing.

 

[Charlie Kelly]

There may well be nothing wrong with the hard drive. The first thing you should try is running the recovery console from the XP CD and then running a check disk with the command 'chkdsk'. If the file structure on your main partition has corrupted (which looks like what's happened) then this will fix it and allow Windows to boot correctly. I've seen this problem before and in all those cases the hard disk itself was fine.

If it doesn't work then follow the advice of the other posters.

Charlie

 

[Shatinator]

Hey all I went to check out that site that Jazia provided at Live Knoppix CD and my Norton poped up with an unsafe site alarm, see:

Threat Report

Total threats found: 22

Drive-By Downloads Threats found: 22
Here is a sample:
Threat Name: HTTP PHPBB URL Decode SQL Injection Location: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14904&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=%2527%252esystem%28chr%28101%29%252echr%2899%29%252echr%28104%29%252echr%28111%29%252echr%2832%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%28115%29%252echr%28116%29%252echr%2897%29%252echr%28114%29%252echr%28116%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2832%29%252echr%2859%29%252echr%2832%29%252echr%28108%29%252echr%28115%29%252echr%2832%29%252echr%2845%29%252echr%28108%29%252echr%2897%29%252echr%2832%29%252echr%2859%29%252echr%2832%29%252echr%28101%29%252echr%2899%29%252echr%28104%29%252echr%28111%29%252echr%2832%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%28101%29%252echr%28110%29%252echr%28100%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%252echr%2895%29%29%252e%2527&start=30&sid=f803f9b30f047c92e4cc549f2331c938

Threat Name: HTTP PHPBB URL Decode SQL Injection Location: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewto...start=40&sid=b9b33cf99584f7420f7bf3b3612c0ae4

Threat Name: HTTP PHPBB URL Decode SQL Injection Location: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewto...start=30&sid=b9b33cf99584f7420f7bf3b3612c0ae4

Threat Name: HTTP PHPBB URL Decode SQL Injection Location: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewto...start=40&sid=675bd2a54a2c2fed26fcd070274229e2

Threat Name: HTTP PHPBB URL Decode SQL Injection Location: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewto...start=30&sid=f79295f10fd87a4fb42bd1415fa894c1

Threat Name: HTTP PHPBB URL Decode SQL Injection Location: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewto...start=40&sid=f79295f10fd87a4fb42bd1415fa894c1

Threat Name: HTTP PHPBB URL Decode SQL Injection Location: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewto...start=30&sid=675bd2a54a2c2fed26fcd070274229e2

Threat Name: HTTP PHPBB URL Decode SQL Injection Location: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewto...&start=0&sid=675bd2a54a2c2fed26fcd070274229e2

Threat Name: Direct link to HTTP PHPBB URL Decode SQL Injection Location: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewto...))%2e%27&sid=f903c021cdda0ee0eab0991959d1fbb8

Threat Name: Direct link to HTTP PHPBB URL Decode SQL Injection Location: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewto...start=20&sid=f903c021cdda0ee0eab0991959d1fbb8
Watch out!

-The Shatinator

 

[Robert Maxwell]

You can safely ignore those. It looks like the Knoppix folks hadn't kept their phpBB installation up-to-date, and ended up with some SQL-injection attacks, which have since been resolved.

The links provided are all broken. There doesn't appear to be anything to worry about, and I think it's pretty damn reckless of Norton to continue to claim it's a "threatening" site.

 

[Jadzia]

I think it's pretty damn reckless of Norton to continue to claim it's a "threatening" site.

Norton has no products it can sell to linux converts afaik

 

[gastrof]

Guys-

I haven't done anything yet (except start getting the W98 machine ready to work with my USB thumb drive), but I do appreciate the suggestions. I'm tempted to try and download the Linux CD first, just to finish backing up my files before I even TRY to fix the XP boot problem.

The recovery console idea also sounds like the solutions I found online, so this may save me a few dollars in repairs if I can do it myself.

Of course, the screen on the XP laptop has to be fixed anyway (I've been using a MONITOR with a LAPTOP ), so the repair is a given, but maybe it won't be as expensive.

Hey, thanks MUCH for these replies.

I'll let you know how it all works out.

Later!

 

[GalaxyX]

I've never used Live Knoppix, but Ubuntu will load from CD and will read NTFS successfully, and it's a reasonably small download (compared to other Linux Distros, like OpenSUSE)