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Nothing Boots, Endless Cycle of Restarts


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#1
munkeefurrball

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I'm not even sure where to start. I've tried searching for any similar posts but either there are none, or my brain is too fried to see it. So I'm truly sorry if it's a repost.

Ok, so I took my Toshiba Satellite laptop to class today to take notes and lo and behold, it wouldn't start up. It loads up to the Windows Logo, but suddenly flashes a blue screen, then restarts and takes me to a black screen where I can choose from 3 safe modes, last known good config and normal. None of these work, including safe mode. I booted up, hit F8 and disabled automatic restart on system failure. The blue screen of death gives: UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME.

To my knowledge, I haven't installed any new software or hardware.I have Windows XP Home that came installed on it. All I have is the Toshiba CD that came with it.

I don't know what to do. Is there anything I can do to at least save all my data? I have papers that I've been working on and if I lose them... I don't know what I'd do.


Please please please, can anyone help?

Edited by munkeefurrball, 24 June 2009 - 05:41 PM.

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#2
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UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME error usually means system files messed up.

If you have Windows CD...(if you don't have Windows CD, scroll down)

1. Insert your Windows XP CD into your CD and assure that your CD-ROM drive is capable of booting the CD.
2. Once you have booted from CD, do NOT select the option that states: Press F2 to initiate the Automated System Recovery (ASR) tool.
You’re going to proceed until you see the following screen, at which point you will press the “R” key to enter the recovery console:

Posted Image

3. After you have selected the appropriate option from step two, you will be prompted to select a valid Windows installation (typically number “1″).
Select the installation number, and hit Enter.
If there is an administrator password for the administrator account, enter it and hit Enter (if asked for the password, and you don't know it, you're out of luck).
You will be greeted with this screen, which indicates a recovery console at the ready:

Posted Image

4. There are eight commands you must enter in sequence to repair your problem..
I will introduce them here, and then show the results graphically in the next six steps.
NOTE. Make sure, you press Enter after each command. Make sure, all commands are exact, including "spaces".
These commands are as follows:

CD..
ATTRIB -H C:\\boot.ini
ATTRIB -S C:\\boot.ini
ATTRIB -R C:\\boot.ini
del boot.ini
BOOTCFG /Rebuild


Note about the above command.
BOOTCFG /REBUILD command which searches for pre-existing installations of Windows XP and rebuilds sundry essential components of the Windows operating system, recompiles the BOOT.INI file and corrects a litany of common Windows errors.
It is very important that you do one or both of the following two things:
A.) Every Windows XP owner must use /FASTDETECT as OS Load Option when the rebuild process is finalizing.
B.) If you are the owner of a CPU featuring Intel’s XD or AMD’s NX buffer overflow protection, you must also use /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN as an OS Load Option.
For the Enter Load Identifier portion of this command, you should enter the name of the operating system you have installed.
If, for example, you are using Windows XP Home, you could type Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition for the identifier (it's not crucial, however what the name is, as long, as it's meaningful).
Here is your computer screen:

Posted Image

5. Following command verifies the integrity of the hard drive containing the Windows XP installation. While this step is not an essential function in our process, it’s still good to be sure that the drive is physically capable of running windows, in that it contains no bad sectors or other corruptions that might be the culprit:

CHKDSK /R

6. This last command writes a new boot sector to the hard drive and cleans up all the loose ends we created by rebuilding the BOOT.INI file and the system files. When the Windows Recovery Console asks you if you are Sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C: ? just hit “Y”, then Enter to confirm your decision:

FIXBOOT

7. It’s time to reboot your PC by typing
EXIT
and pressing Enter.

With any luck, your PC will boot successfully into Windows XP as if your various DLL, Hive, EXE and NTLDR errors never existed.



If you don't have Windows CD...
Download Windows Recovery Console: http://www.thecomput...om/files/rc.iso
Download, and install free Imgburn: http://www.imgburn.c...hp?act=download
Using Imgburn, burn rc.iso to a CD.
Boot to the CD...let it finish loading.
When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.
Then, follow instructions from Step #3 above.
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#3
munkeefurrball

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Thanks for replying. The Toshiba CD I have doesn't give me any choices other than to reformat, which isn't an option right now. I'll try that part at the bottom and let you know what happens.

Thank you!!
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#4
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If anything fails, you can always remove HD, hook it up to another computer, and retrieve your data.
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#5
munkeefurrball

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Ok so I downloaded that file and burned it to a CD. I booted up my laptop with it but it doesn't really do anything. It gives me a blue screen and at the top it says Windows Setup. At the bottom it says setup is loading and then setup is starting Windows. At this point it just seems to freeze, and no text or options ever show up in the middle of the screen. Did I do something wrong? Or is it supposed to stay on this screen while it 'starts' Windows?
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#6
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At the blue screen did you press R?
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#7
munkeefurrball

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Yes, but it didn't do anything. There were no options given. I just tried again, the only thing that responds is F6 which it says is for installing third party SCISC or something of that sort.

Edited by munkeefurrball, 24 June 2009 - 06:35 PM.

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#8
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Hmmm...did you say Toshiba?
Not good, because I was thinking about running hard drive diagnostics, but unfortunately Toshiba is the only manufacturer, which doesn't provide such tool.

I guess, you'll have remove the drive, and hook it up to another computer, to get your data off of it.
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#9
munkeefurrball

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Great. Is there anything else I could try? Cause I sure as [bleep] don't know how to remove the drive and hook it up to another computer. And I just as sure don't have the money to pay someone to do it.
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#10
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Try to boot from Toshiba CD, and see what options you have there.
It may offer you non-destructive recovery.
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#11
munkeefurrball

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Thanks for replying. The Toshiba CD I have doesn't give me any choices other than to reformat, which isn't an option right now. I'll try that part at the bottom and let you know what happens.

Thank you!!


Sounds like you're out of ideas. Guess I'm off to throw my laptop off the roof. >.<

Thanks for your help though.
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#12
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You can remove hard drive, get USB hard drive enclosure, put Toshiba drive in it, hook it up to another computer, and get your data.
Cost ~$30.
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#13
munkeefurrball

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Ok, so hours later, $50 and two trips to Best Buy, I have my laptops hard drive in a Rocketfish 2.5 pata enclosure. My mom's laptop recognizes it, and the light on it turns on, but when I try to access it, it says "E:\ is not accessible. The parameter is incorrect." I wasted my birthday money on this thing and now I have more problems. Does that mean I can't recover any data off my HD? Any ideas would be helpful.

Thanks
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#14
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This is not good.
Go Start>Run, type in:
diskmgmt.msc
Click OK.

How is E drive listed there?
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#15
munkeefurrball

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Layout: Partition
Type: Basic
File System:
Status: Healthy (Active)
Capacity: 92.97 GB
Free Space: 92.97 GB
% Free: 100%
Fault Tolerance: No
Overhead: 0%

Soo that it says 100% free is bad, huh? =[
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