The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems

[fjivian]

I have a Dell Dimension 8400 and the other day it started giving me UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME error so I tried rebooting my computer from the Windows XP disk. I performing "chkdsk /p" but it stopped at 38% and stated "The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems" What should I do? Should I continue with "fixboot"?

Also when I choose the recovery option in the setup, it never stated which Windows installation I would like to log into. So on the command screen it showed that I was in the C:\> directory and not in the C:\WINDOWS> directory (which I was expecting.) I tried to get into the WINDOWS directory by typing "cd windows" but it stated "The path or file specified is not valid." Is that normal? That's the directory where I performed "chkdsk /p" I'm afraid to perform "fixboot" in the same directory. Also I changed my SATA drive to "combination" rather than "RAID Autodetect / AHCI" because every time I tried to perform the recovery it stated "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer" I learned this from https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic18329.html

So should I still perform "fixboot" in the C:\> directory?

 

[AlbertLionheart]

The sad truth is that the drive is dying.
You should go to the manufacturers website and download their free tools to analyse what is going on.

 

[iss]

I agree, it sounds like your Hard drive is toast. if it is still underwarranty contact Dell. if it is not get another hard drive.

 

[Jazzgirl]

I guarantee your hard drive is probably toast. I am going through the same error with a Dell laptop. I have been having some trouble for the last couple of months. I finally called Dell tonight because I was suspecting, after repairing twice and able to boot twice using last known good, that the drive was going. We ran the diagnostics (F12 on bootup, select diagnostics) and it showed the drive failing. The only thing I cared about was backing up my iTunes library. After running diagnostics I was able to boot into XP. I was able to backup my iTunes library. They are sending me a new drive.