Unmountable Boot Volume

[Camaro383]

I need some help here. My computer will not boot up and just shows a blue screen that displays "Unmountable boot volume". I tried to use safe mode but that did not work. I tried to boot with the restore disk and it took me to a dos prompt. The only drive it would let me into was the A:\ and R:\. Now I know that the R: is the cd rom, but I don't know why it is called R: instead of D: like usual. I do not have a clue what this A drive is. The only file in it that will run is called ghost.exe and I don't know what that program is used for.
Any feed back would be appreciated or if you need more information I will be glad to give it to you. Thanks

 

[Lostfaith]

Download hiren's boot cd and diagnostic your harddrive.

also try resetting your bios to default settings and see if it recognises your harddrive.

 

[Camaro383]

I really don't know how to do any of that. Could you elaborate on that a little more.

 

[Samstoned]

everybody should have a cheap 2nd hard drive.
ghost .exe is probably a boot disk stuck in the floppy drive(the one with the little button on the side) pull it out and reboot it is trying to boot this.
If you know how to get into your bios check to see if your HDD's are there
this forum may have a sticky on getting into bios

 

[Camaro383]

It might be better if I give you a better description of what is going on.
This problem all started when my monitor went out and I decided to use a 15 year old one that we had. The computer started up on this monitor but the screen was all fuzzy and messed up. I thought I might be able to fix it by changing some of the settings in safe mode but after I got into safe mode once the computer started going to the blue “Unmountable boot volume” screen.
I changed it over to a new monitor and this is what it does now:

First, I turn on my computer and I get a screen that says:

“Windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this.” Then it gives you the options of starting it in safe mode, safe-mode with networking, safe mode with command prompt, last known configuration and start windows normally.

All end up showing the Unmountable Boot Volume screen. This is what the Tech. information says:
*** STOP: 0x000000ED (0X80EEF890, 0Xc0000032, 0X00000000, 0x00000000)

So then I got information to try and boot it from my restore CD. When I do that the computer starts with 2 options Restore Windows or Boot to Command Prompt from CD-Rom. I have not pick the restore option yet because I do not want to lose all of my files. When I select the boot from command prompt option this is what I get:

SYSTEM VERIFICATION
====================
System Information is Being Verified

A:\>

After this I can not access anything but the CD-Rom drive and the A drive (what ever that is). This is the contents of the A drive:
AutoExec.bat
Choice.com
Command.com
Config.sys
Ejectcd.exe
Em_Lock.exe
Ghost.exe
Ghost.env
Himem.sys
Mscdex.exe
Oakcdrom.sys
Reboot.exe

These are the only files that I can access on my computer.
I also got into BIOS like you said and the Primary Master is [ST340810A-(PM)] and the Secondary Master is [Samsung CD-R/RW SW-21].

Please help me figure out what is wrong.

 

[PGJG]

If you are still having that problem then try this. I have just fixed a similar problem on a friends PC (Compaq 5000 series). He was getting the same problem. I'll explain what I done. I took the hard drive out of the friends computer and put it into my own as a slave drive, something for which I was a bit wary of at first. I was lucky. My own computer found the second hard drive and set it up automatically. I think it has to be done manually on some PC's. I then ran AVG Free Edition Antivirus software on the offending drive. It found 5 viruses and 3 of them were in the boot sector which were preventing the PC from booting. I removed the hard drive from my PC and put it back into the friends one. His PC booted up, no problem. I installed AVG Free Edition on his PC and found another 578 viruses. Some were the same virus downloaded over and over again but saved in different folders. AVG can be downloaded free from AVG I must sound like an ad for AVG but it is good. If you have a second PC or can find a friend who is willing to let you open his PC, it'll be worth a try.If this works, you could also run a Spyware program.

 

[zephead]

what a coincidence! my friend also has a compaq and it has the exact same problem described. A virus was causing it alright, AVG cleaned it right out. apparently McAffee makes really innefective AV software, as it had let said virus onto system in the first place.

 

[lyam77]

If you are using windows XP or 2000. Boot with the windows cd and run the recovery console.
Once in the recovery console do a chkdsk
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058/EN-US/
If you are using Windows 2000 their is a link on that page.

This has happenned to me and it fixed the problem.

Hope this help?