[zackwz]

My hp desktop computer can't boot up and now it has the blue scree of death, unmountable_boot_volume. I think the boot.ini is messed up.
So i need to use the recovery console. I downloaded the 4.18mb file that extracts to 6 blank floppy disks. Problem is i can't boot to ms-dos to get to the recovery console. The ms-dos startup disk doesn't do it. I've set the floppy drive to the first to boot in bios, the computer reads A drive, goes straight to choice menu but not ms-dos prompt. Maybe the ms-dos startup disk isn't working, is there any other way to force the computer to boot to A drive?

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do you have a cd drive?
its a lot faster imo to load recovery off the install cd...
there you can run fixmbr, fixboot and bootcfg



also depending on your bios (ami, pheonix, award etc) you can hit
a key to manually select boot device.

On mine its F8. I don't have a floppy drive but if I did it would be on the list, along with any cd drives, usb drives, hard drives and network boot options.

Edited by orangekangaroo, 15 April 2005 - 02:52 PM.

[orangekangaroo]

do you have a cd drive?
its a lot faster imo to load recovery off the install cd...
there you can run fixmbr, fixboot and bootcfg



also depending on your bios (ami, pheonix, award etc) you can hit
a key to manually select boot device.

On mine its F8. I don't have a floppy drive but if I did it would be on the list, along with any cd drives, usb drives, hard drives and network boot options.

Edited by orangekangaroo, 15 April 2005 - 02:52 PM.

[zackwz]

my hp computer doesn't come with install cd. mine is phoenix bios.

[orangekangaroo]

you are running xp, correct?

if you don't have an xp install cd (doesn't have to be an hp one, a friends or spare one will work) then try 1 of 2 things...

1. I believe in pheonix bios its F8 or f12 look when it turns on it should say press del or f2 or whatever to enter setup, <blank> to select boot device...so whatever that blank is. probably f8 or f12 or tab.
then make sure the floppy is in the list and select it. if you say you have the floppies made it should boot. if it tries to boot but doesn't,
go to www.bootdisk.com and just make a single (1) ms-dos bootable floppy and report if that works.

2. since they didn't give you a cd it makes me think there is one of those recovery partitions on your hard drive. it may be a hidden partition and might not be avaliable to you without either something like partitionmagic, a boot cd (like the ultimate boot cd or windows pe) or an hp recovery cd. do you have any knowledge of this partition existing? or is there a hard drive discrepancy on the order of a gb or more (like you're supposed to have a 20gb drive and you only show 16 avaliable)?

[zackwz]

my last resort would be taking hard disk out of computer and put it in external hdd enclosure and copy the data to another computer and just clean install it from system recovery. But it's too much trouble disasembling the computer.
Anyway, thanks i'll try www.bootdisk.com.
the computer supposely has 60gb, but only around 51-55 is available.

[gerryf]

this is why HP should be put to death....there insistance on giving you limited tools to solve your problems...grumble

What is your model number?

Some HP systems have two recovery mode factory reinstall and a refresh that is not unlike a windows repair.

[zackwz]

da*n, i just returned the external floppy drive.

[gerryf]

this is why HP should be put to death....there insistance on giving you limited tools to solve your problems...grumble

What is your model number?

Some HP systems have two recovery mode factory reinstall and a refresh that is not unlike a windows repair.

You didn't answer


Also, I just found my newest favorite tech tool...a self-contained bootable recovery console!

Download, burn it as a cd (not burn it on--burn an iso), then boot, enter recovery console and run

fixboot c:

http://forum.tweakxp...essageID=153115

[zackwz]

You didn't answer
Also, I just found my newest favorite tech tool...a self-contained bootable recovery console!

Download, burn it as a cd (not burn it on--burn an iso), then boot, enter recovery console and run

fixboot c:

http://forum.tweakxp...essageID=153115

Thanks, I'll use alcohol 120% to burn it.

[zackwz]

I have a hp pavilian xt938. should i use chkdsk /p first?

[zackwz]

fix the blue screen problem, now the real problem showed up. a message "lsass.exe, when update password, return value is not correct", this ends up an infinite restart loop