[strout99]

Hi,
Saturday nite I shut my Toshiba [Satellite 1805 that's 2 yrs old] laptop down. Sunday morning it wouldn't start.
Today, I tried to start it again and FINALLY got to read the blue screen which said
Unmountable Boot Volume.

I restarted w/f8 and managed to get the computer to get to
a:\>
and it recognizes the CD drive as Q

It's got Hijack on it but I can't find the hard drive to run it headscratch.gif


Reading the Readme.txt file on the CD says that if I choose Option 2 to Boot from CD, then it will erase the hard disk and I've got some files I don't want to lose.
Help from Maine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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since it was working before, we can rule out bad cable so

Step 1

If you do not have a Windows XP CD, do the following


download RC.iso from the following link:

http://www.thecomput...edic.com/rc.iso

You need to burn this image to a CD and boot your computer with it--this is different than burning a file to a CD. If you do not know how to burn an ISO image, then download the following program to another Windows XP machine, install it.

make certain you download the proper installation for your version of windows. Open MY COMPUTER, choose HELP > ABOUT. Note the service pack and get the appropriate version of the iso burner power toy

http://isorecorder.a...isorecorder.htm

After installation, reboot, then right click the RC.iso file you downloaded above and choose COPY IMAGE TO CD.

Then reboot your broken PC with that CD in the CD-ROM drive.

This will give you a recovery console to use to run

Insert the cd into the non-functioning PC



STEP 2

When boot begins, a windows setup will appear to start, but you will be taken to a recovery console.

You will need to select your windows installation by pressing a number, most likely 1

Windows will ask you for a password

If you have XP home, press enter...there is no password

If you have XP Pro, you need to enter the password you set when you installed your machine with XP Pro.

After entering the password, you will find yourself at a command prompt that looks like this

c:\windows

type
chkdsk /r
<enter>

follow the prompts, then when it is complete, remove the CD

type

EXIT

<enter>

the machine will reboot

Did that fix it?

[gerryf]

since it was working before, we can rule out bad cable so

Step 1

If you do not have a Windows XP CD, do the following


download RC.iso from the following link:

http://www.thecomput...edic.com/rc.iso

You need to burn this image to a CD and boot your computer with it--this is different than burning a file to a CD. If you do not know how to burn an ISO image, then download the following program to another Windows XP machine, install it.

make certain you download the proper installation for your version of windows. Open MY COMPUTER, choose HELP > ABOUT. Note the service pack and get the appropriate version of the iso burner power toy

http://isorecorder.a...isorecorder.htm

After installation, reboot, then right click the RC.iso file you downloaded above and choose COPY IMAGE TO CD.

Then reboot your broken PC with that CD in the CD-ROM drive.

This will give you a recovery console to use to run

Insert the cd into the non-functioning PC



STEP 2

When boot begins, a windows setup will appear to start, but you will be taken to a recovery console.

You will need to select your windows installation by pressing a number, most likely 1

Windows will ask you for a password

If you have XP home, press enter...there is no password

If you have XP Pro, you need to enter the password you set when you installed your machine with XP Pro.

After entering the password, you will find yourself at a command prompt that looks like this

c:\windows

type
chkdsk /r
<enter>

follow the prompts, then when it is complete, remove the CD

type

EXIT

<enter>

the machine will reboot

Did that fix it?

[strout99]

Run into some trouble . . . I got the CD burned w/rc.iso using an Acer AMD Turion 64 with XP SP2 on it.
Then I put the CD into the Toshiba and when I boot from the CD it says Welcome to Setup XP Home Edition, but I have XP Pro 5.1 on it.
I have 3 options . . . Setup, Repair or Quit, now what?

[gerryf]

repair

you cannot setup with that disk---it was just made from a windows xp home cd....

all it does is give you access to a recovery console so you can run chkdsk

[strout99]

Okay, that seemed to work. I've got my hard drive back and after booting to safe mode, I rebooted and there's my hard drive. This site is awesome!!!!!

What could have caused the failure and do you think I've got a problem with my hard drive now? A friend thought my hard drive may have failed.

[gerryf]

When your computer is on, it is accessing the harddrive--even when you are doing nothing. If you ever cared to setup a program to monitor drive read and writes, it would boggle the mind to see how much activity is occuring when the thing is just sitting there.

With each read and write, there is a potential for a problem, but despite the cries that Windows is an unstable piece of junk, it is a remarkable achievement that it does not crash and burn constantly

Sometime, during these read and writes, a small write goes bad and a file is altered. Most of the time, windows catches it; sometimes, it does not.

In the normal course of operations, windows will fix these things itself even then, but sometimes, it does not and a manual fix is needed. Chkdsk does a variety of things from ensuring files can be read, to ensuring that files are where it thinks they are.

What happened here is that Windows lost track of a very important file...chkdisk found it and pointed Windows in the right direction.

Could your drive be dying? Yes....Is it dying for sure? No.

As always, back up critical data.

You may want to run chkdsk again soon


You might also

start > run
eventvwr.msc
<enter>

and look for errors in the system and application areas

[strout99]

Okay, you said yes my HD is dying, should I get a new one?

What am I looking for when I run eventvwr.msc

Finally, a friend had installed XP Pro 5.1, and since I don't have the originals, I think I'm going to reformat and do a complete re-install of the XP Home that the laptop came with and get the updates. The laptop is only 2 1/2 yrs old. Does this sound like a safe idea?

I've had enough problems in the past on other computers so that all my data is on flash drives. I had been in the process of getting all photos off CDs and organizing them on an external HD. I read somewhere that CDs fail after a period of time and being accessed too many times.
Thanks!

[gerryf]

i did no say it is dying....I said it could be dying.

In Event viewer, look for RED Xs


this will give you an indication of a harddrive dying more than your symptoms