Can you help me? I'm dealing with an "Unmountable Boot Volume" screen on my Toshiba Satellite laptop - Windows XP.

For some reason, my laptop decided, everytime I start it up, to pop up a black screen with white letters, asking for me to choose a mode to start my computer in since "the last time it started was unsuccessful." Then, no matter what I choose, it always briefly shows the "Windows XP Home Edition" screen (y'know, the one that comes up whenever you start up the computer, with the windows symbol and the little dots scrolling along). But then almost right away, this blue screen pops up which says, "A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME." Then it goes on to say that if problems continue, disable BIOS memory options and whatever.....

But, yeah, I tried sticking in my Product Recovery CD Rom when I started up the laptop, but that doesn't do anything; the same thing continues to happen. And I tried to download the Windows XP boot disk (6 floppies), but still the same thing happens. I can't get past that screen no matter what. Any idea what I should do next? I would SOOOOO appreciate your help if you have any advice!!!!

My e-mail is: stoonberry@rome.com if you prefer that to forum posting.

(P.S. I'm not too technical, so the simpler the better!! Thanks.)

Somehow Windows is not loading, or is unable to access your HD. This is typical of a messed up boot.ini. You might be able to fix it:

- Set your bios to boot from CD (otherwise it'll ignore the CD)
- Insert XP CD, and after booting, open recovory console.
- Run commands "fixmbr" and "fixboot" and "chkdsk /r" (without quotes) at the prompt.
- Hopefully you will be able to load Windows after setting bios back to boot from HD.

Hey there! Thanks for getting back to me so quickly! Um...I'm not exceptionally bright with computers , so could you explain to me how I set my bios to boot from the CD? I don't think I've seen that option on any of the few screens I've been able to access.

Thank you!

After you turn on your pc, keep pressing "del" (on some pcs, during POST it says what to press) to access your bios. Look around in all the options, and you should see something like "boot device" or "boot priority." Set CD Rom to 1st, and HD to 2nd.

Save the new bios settings and stick your XP cd in. Reboot, and your pc will boot from the cd.

After a while, you'll see an option for booting into recovory console. After that, you'll be asked to pick what installation you want to access.
After that, run the commands I posted above.

Thank you so much for your help; I'll see what I can do!

I really think it's great that you would be willing to help an absolute stranger like me! Thank you and God bless!