[kenotrux]

I am getting an Unmountable Boot Volume error. Unsuccessul starting in the safe mode.

Have a Dell 8400, XP,with service pak 2($)

Thanks in advance for the HELP.

Thanks

Ken

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Boot off your XP CD.
Press any key when prompted.
Press R on the "Welcome to Windows XP" screen.
Press 1 when it asks you which Windows to log onto and type any password you may have.
Type "chkdsk /p /r" and press Enter.
When done, bash the reset button.

[Neil Jones]

Boot off your XP CD.
Press any key when prompted.
Press R on the "Welcome to Windows XP" screen.
Press 1 when it asks you which Windows to log onto and type any password you may have.
Type "chkdsk /p /r" and press Enter.
When done, bash the reset button.

[Fenor]

To make Neil Jones' instructions a bit more clear:

Do you have your windows XP CD? If you do, I want you to put it in and turn on your computer. When you are given the message press any key to boot from cd..., press a key and Windows Setup will start. At the first screen where you have to enter input, hit R to enter the Recovery Console. Then you will have to hit 1 to log into your windows installation and then just hit Enter for the Administrator password because it is normally blank unless you changed it. Once you are at the command prompt C:\WINDOWS I want you to type chkdsk /p /r. This will run a VERY THOROUGH check of both your hard drive and also your windows installation files and replace any that are missing/corrupt. Once it's done, type Exit and take out your Windows XP cd. Your computer will reboot itself.

Fenor

[kenotrux]

Do I put the XP reinstallation CD in the drive and boot the machine up to get to the Recovery console and was not sucessful.

The machine tells me that it was previously shut down incorrectly and gives me a choice of safe mode etc...

Can seen to get to the Recovery console.

Your thoughts

Thanks for the assistance.

Ken

[kenotrux]

To clarify previous response. I have tried to boot off of XP reinstall CP but it does not seem to want to boot off of the Dell reinstallation CD. THerefore, I cannot get to the Recovery console.

Thoughts....

Ken

[Neil Jones]

My previous instructions were rubbish, for which i apologise, and this is what late nights do to you. Please pretend I never wrote them. Thank you.

Anyway, your Dell reinstallation CD is most likely not a "proper" Windows CD and has been made in such a way that accessing the recovery console is not an option. Many branded computers are like this with their CDs, some you don't even get a CD.

The only solution therefore is to find a friend with a proper Windows CD and borrow his. It doesn't matter which version of XP the friend has, because so far as the recovery console goes, there's no difference anyway.

[Fenor]

You can download the Recovery Console from Here. Burn the image to a cd using your favorite burning program. (Nero, etc...) Then follow along with the previous instructions to enter the Recovery Console and run the chkdsk.

Fenor

[buycubed]

Once this recovery process is complete and windows reloads properly, do you need to re-load SP2 or any other windows security patches/updates that were installed after the the original CD install was done?