Unmountable Boot Volume Windows XP

[2002 GLS]

Hi guys, a friend has a Toshiba Qosmio G25-Av513 with Windows XP media Center 2005. I was running fine on day, then the next day it will not boot up... I try to boot up the computer, and it will show the XP splash loading screen, but will stop about a min in to the boot with a error of Unmountable_Boot_Volume. I boot up in safe mode and it freezes at C:windows/blah blah blah/ System32/MUP.SYS. then go to the blue screen with white letters. I have tried to do a restore of windows, but they do not have the XP CD, so i tried the Dell XP for 2001, and it worked, but when the menu comes up on what to do, one is to install XP, Witch is Enter, then another one is "R" restore, then last is "Q" quit. i have tried both enter and R and it says that computer does not have a HD installed. I do not think it is the HD that came with the computer, it is only 60GB. What can i do to get windows up and running?

Tech numbers:
stop: 0X000000ED, 0X86780900, 0Xc00000815, 0X00000000, 0X00000000
thanks!

[HeadOfMax]

Figure out what manufacturer the hard drive is and get their software to check the drive. Usually you can put the software on a CD, Floppy or flash drive and boot to it to run the prog.

It probably needs a Hard drive though.

[Tommy]

Youll need an XP install disk, doesnt really matter what flavor, just need to get to the recovery console. And no, the hard drive is not necessarily bad.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555302
http://www.techtraction.com/2008/05/21/fixing-a-windows-unmountable-boot-volume/
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2605/fixing_the_dreaded_unmountable_boot_volume_error

do the fixboot, thats what rebuilds the boot.ini file that tells the computer what to do once it begins loading windows.

[Munky]

Also make sure you check the internals of the computer to see if the hard drive wasn't knocked loose.

[cbogg]

Sounds like the hd might be junk. I had the Dell tech in at work today, for the same problem on 2 dimensions (both less than 2 years old), he ended up swapping out the hard drives, they both took a ****. We've had 5 go bad this month alone.

[Tommy]

seen this happen plenty of times when the hard drive was fine.

sometimes happens if the system powers down unexpectedly, which happens with laptops frequently.

[hyunelan2]

If there is not any extremely sensative data on the drive, I'd delete the partitions and start fresh, using the XP install disc to create new partitions and format.

I'd still lean towards dead or dying hard drive though. I've come across plenty of laptops at work that I'll get them reinstalled and working, only to crap out a few weeks later. Repeat. Replace hard drive, and things are smooth from there.

[03GT]

http://www.aitechsolutions.net/mupdotsysXPhang.html

[agdaniels]

sounds like the partition header got screwed up. Dont let the word 'boot' throw you, it may be trying to access the drive, see it as invalid because the header is bad and say it cant boot from it. big clue in to this is that it's not seeing the drive intermittently. Also, check the physical connections, be sure its seated properly (this could also cause instability)

so yes, using the recovery console is good to try, but it could also be that you need to rebuild the partition (reformat the disc)


listen for physical issues with the drive as a good starting point for if its going bad. do you hear it ticking or grinding in a way that it never did before? does it seem to run much more slowly then before?

[Tommy]

I can almost guarantee that a checkdisk/p and a fixboot will solve the issue.

i do this ALL the time. BSOD on boot is rarely fatal. At worst, you get it up and running for a few weeks, then transfer your stuff to a new drive if it does it again.

[Poopsicle]

I got this problem too and the checkdisk thing worked.

[cclngthr]

I do a checkdisk on my drives on a regular basis. Keeps boot problems from happening most of the time. Also, you may want to check the CMOS and BIOS. That might be corrupted. Had a computer that kept shutting down on its own unexpectedly even after swapping hard drives and doing a clean install. The bios was corrupted and reflashing that solved the issue.

[protias]

Either the drive is gone, bad cable, or bad port on the motherboard.

[Tommy]

Either the drive is gone, bad cable, or bad port on the motherboard.

please dont make suggestions if you dont know what youre talking about.

[2001GLS]

I just had a Toshiba hard drive die in my M15-S405. I would definitely check the drive. Some of their models have high failure rates. I replaced it with a 100GB Seagate I got off the net for $60 shipped.

[protias]

please dont make suggestions if you dont know what youre talking about.

Yes, because I haven't been building computers for 7 years, or haven't worked in the IT field for the last 5 years. I guess I have no idea what I'm talking about.

[Tommy]

bad cable - laptops dont have cables to connect to the mobo
bad port - if it was bad, it wouldnt see the HD at all.
bad drive - possible, but equally possible that there's nothing wrong with it at all.


Do you work for geeksquad?

[protias]

bad cable - laptops dont have cables to connect to the mobo
bad port - if it was bad, it wouldnt see the HD at all.
bad drive - possible, but equally possible that there's nothing wrong with it at all.


Do you work for geeksquad?

So how do laptop hard drives connect to the motherboard then? :confused:
If there was a bad port, it may still show the drive (this happened to me on an Asus A7V333).
Nothing wrong with transferring the drive to a desktop and seeing if that desktop sees the disk. I have a WD 300GB IDE drive that fails on a chkdsk but it seems to work fine otherwise.

No, I have higher standards.

[smileymattj]

Most laptops hard drives just plug directly into the motherboard. The motherboard has the 44 pins on it.

sounds to me like the boot.ini is pointing to the wrong partition where windows is located, but then it freezing on that one file makes it sound like the file is missing/currupt/ or the part of the HD where that file is located may be currupt.

If he can see the windows load screen the hard drive is good. Worst possibility is a bad sector, and a scandisk or windows xp format would mark those sectors bad and not writeable, leaving good sectors.

you can run the console repair (first repair option) and use the fixmbr (pretty sure that won't do anything cus normally a mbr error means you can't get to the windows loading screen)

It could be a boot.ini miss configuration you can repair that under the console repair also, using bootcfg
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330184

if all else fails a windows repair install should fix it (second repair option). This will leave your programs in place, won't delete your files, just windows files. The boot.ini has to be inplace and working correctly for a windows repair install to work.

I would try chkdisk first.