[okal]

Hi,

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 notebook and recently I had a hard drive crash where when I tried to boot into windows I get a blue screen error "UNMOUNTABLE BOOT VOLUME." I ran diagonistics test and it gave me error code "0F00:0244 - uncorrectable data error or media is write protected." Didn't look too good, so I did some research and it says that this means that there are bad sectors on the hard drive and that it will need replacements. However, I found in some forum (I think this one) that you can reboot into windows using "chkdsk /r", which I did and it worked. So I was able to backup my files onto CD's. My computer has been running fine for about 3 days now, I don't really expect a total HD failure.

Anyways, my question is should I be worried about a crash because of this severe error code or should I go ahead a get a new hard drive? Also, the way this whole thing happened was that I was trying to burn a CD and my comp. froze on me during the burn, so I had to shut down my notebook improperly. Then when I tried to reboot I got the blue screen error. I have been reading a lot online about this problem, it seems pretty common, at least among Dell computers. But I am getting a lot of contradictory posts, some saying that it is fatal and others saying that there is hope.

Any help or advice? I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks.

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Hi okal! Welcome to G2G!

Seems to me like the hard drive itself isn't damaged, but rather some of the system files used by Windows. Since you did the chkdsk /r in the recovery console, you should be okay. Have you noticed anything else since the incident while trying to burn a cd? Does it seem slower when doing certain activities, hangs at times or anything like the that?

Fenor

[Fenor]

Hi okal! Welcome to G2G!

Seems to me like the hard drive itself isn't damaged, but rather some of the system files used by Windows. Since you did the chkdsk /r in the recovery console, you should be okay. Have you noticed anything else since the incident while trying to burn a cd? Does it seem slower when doing certain activities, hangs at times or anything like the that?

Fenor

[okal]

Hey, thanks for replying!

Since I did 'chkdsk /r' my computer has been acting pretty much the same way before the error. The only difference I have been noticing is that it is taking longer to boot into windows. Before and after the error, Windows always gives me a message saying that my system is low on memory and it is increasing the virtual memory paging, that some applications may be denied access. This happens every day and I don't understand why, I do not really do anything that requires a lot of memory, at least not every day. My system has 1 GB of RAM, so it should be able to handle it. Just in general, I have been having to restart my computer many times due to it locking or freezing up. This was before and after the error.

So should I ignore posts where they say that my hard drive is dying? I was pretty worried when I first read this. I'm a college student and don't have the money for a new drive. With regard to the burn, I tried burning a CD afterwards (with hesitation) and it worked fine, but it was a different set of songs. Forgive my ignorance, but is it possible that my problem was with the "media is write protected" part of the code? I was burning the new Chilli Peppers CD; could Musicmatch detect that it was copyrighted music and thus shut down my comp? Or is 'media is write protected' a totally different error that I am misintrepreting?

Anyways, any advice you can give I would much appreciate! Thanks.

Edited by okal, 26 June 2006 - 10:35 PM.