UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME Blue Screen

14 years ago

I am a computer moron. My Dell Computer (Windows XP Home edition) has a Blue Screen - UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME message.

From the little that I've been able to learn (here and on ehow), I learned to change the boot location to the cd drive. I downloaded the Win XP boot stuff and burned it to a CD.

I can't get the computer to boot from the cd. Is there a secret key to hit when I restart my computer? or something???

I only get the option to open in 'safe mode' at start-up and when I enter that, it takes me right back to the Blue Screen....Please help. Thank you for any and all advise.

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Comments (11)

owbist
14 years ago
Maddie wrote I downloaded the Win XP boot stuff and burned it to a CD.

What exactly did you download and from where? The full title and 3 digit extension please. With a Dell you either have a separate partition on the hard drive for your recovery process or Dell provided you with CD's with the data on.

Do you have your personal data safely saved other than on the hard drive on the computer?
maddielee
Original Author
14 years ago
Thank you for answering..(no, everything is not safely saved.)

from Microsoft I downloaded this:

WindowsXP-KB310994-SP2-Home-Bootdisc-ENU.exe

I'm guessing it's the correct thing.
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Oh owbist, Thank you soooo very much for responding so quickly! This computer is all original....exactly as it came from Amazon about 6 years ago. I have done some Windows Updates. In fact, a few days before I started having the problems I had done an update. Not for optional but for all the security things. I didn't think my problems had anything to do with the update as the problems didn't start until a few days later. Yes, I checked the fan, heat sink, other fan....all were running as they always have. I shut everything down, got my handy-dandy wrist/shock thing and blew everything out then using a paint brush with soft bristles I removed dust that didn't come out with the blowing. Everything came back on fine, no loud noises, fan reacted as it always has. I have never saved or put anything in D Recovery as I know that it contains the information I need in case my computer should go down and I need to start all over with the factory defaults. I have no idea why all of a sudden I'm told D is short of memory as I've never even bothered with the D. I know my limitations and messing with something I know nothing about is not going to happen in my lifetime as far as computers go. :) The last few times with Blue Screen, the computer screen goes dark, looks as if computer shuts down but instead a Chkdsk program starts. I allow that to run. When it's done, the computer will shut down and start back up with the message in the right corner telling me I am short of D memory. After my first post here, I looked again at the Restore. The date was for April 17, 2013. I believe that was a day my AVG updated. I ran the Restore and got my D back. Here are the numbers I just got from 'Computer': C: Used- 52639744,000 Bytes 49.0 GB Free- 260,710,490,112 Bytes 242 GB Capacity: 313,350,234,112 Bytes __________________ D: Shows a bar with almost all red except a hair-width worth. Space Free: 105 MB Used: 52639744.000 Bytes 49.0 GB
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ravencajun Zone 8b TX
14 years ago
you need the xp recovery console, do you have an xp install cd?
create a bootable XP Recovery Console CD if there is no XP media available.
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
14 years ago
a better link directly to that tutorial is this one
How to Create a Bootable XP Recovery Console CD
zep516
14 years ago
Once your in the recovery console from pressing "R' All you need to do is fix the master boot record "FIXMBR" as shown below...

"Now at the prompt, type in fixmbr. Your damaged MBR will now be replaced with a new master boot record and your computer should now be able to boot properly. Note that you may also want to run the fixboot command to repair the boot sector with a new one."

Please see link for details on this..

Here is a link that might be useful: fix-mbr-xp-vista
maddielee
Original Author
14 years ago
Thank you....I'm just waiting for a friend, who is a little more computer literate, to come see me tomorrow to help me with this.

ML
zep516
14 years ago
It's easier then it looks. I just had to do it. I messed up up my Master Boot record too on my xp machine. I did the steps presented above and it worked...
maddielee
Original Author
14 years ago
Thank you! We have success!

ML
zep516
14 years ago
It's nice to see it again!!!!!

{{gwi:1463026}}
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
14 years ago
I have to give some applause to this one! Sure am glad to see you had some help and that with a little guidance here you were able to over come that error message.
Excellent!
bbbluz ~ DonnaB
14 years ago
WOW! You guys did the "almost impossible!" Congratulations! When zep and I did this to our PC. I thought we were DOOMED! Every step of the way zep and I kept saying, "this isn't going to work." But it did! Yeah!!!!!

You do know that not many recover from this error without taking it to the Tech. Shop! Right?

Kudos to the teamwork involved!
bbbluz

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME Blue Screen

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