i'm asking this for my friend who can not get her computer to boot. she shut down the computer and unplugged the cable modem and left for three days. when she got back on her computer she went to home page and then email and deleted all her spam mail and then returned to home page at which time she got a message that the computer has encountered a problem and must shut down. the end task screen kept coming up and she kept clicking it off and finally just reached down and turned her computer off. now the problem began. now when she tries to boot she gets a black screen and then a blue screen. on the blue screen it says " a problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME. if this is the first time you have seen this stoperror screen, restart your computer. if this screen appears again folow these steps. check to make sure any new hard or software is properly installed. if this is a new installation, ask hard or software mfg. for for any windows updates you may need. if problem continues disable or remove any new installed hard or software. disable BIOS memory options such as caching and shadowing. if you need to use safe mode to remove or disable components restart your computer press F8 to select advanced startup options and then select safe mode. technical information... stop: 0x000000ED (0x8676E030, 0x000009C, 0x00000000, 0x00000000).
after i read some of the entries here i told what was suggested about recovery. she tried to do this by inserting her XP cd but it asks for the automatic system recovery floppy disk to be inserted but she has no such disk to install. every time she tries to boot she gets the black screen and then the blue screen pops up and it won't let het do anything. we are totally at a loss as to what to do
Please help
thanks in advance.
edited out email for security...unless you like spam don't post your email on an open forum

Does it boot to safe mode?

Start the System Restore tool at a command prompt

1. Restart your computer, and keep tapping F8 during the initial start-up until you get options, select Safe Mode with a Command Prompt then press enter.

2. Log on to your computer with an administrator account or with an account that has administrator credentials.

3. Type the following command at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:

%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

4. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen to restore your computer to an earlier state.

Look for the most recent system checkpoint created before the errors to restore from

For additional information about the Safe mode with a command prompt, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315222/


A description of the Safe mode boot options in Windows XP