BSofD
 

friends computer is getting BSofD (blue screen of death)saying unmountable boot after power outage when trying to load winxp home sp2. regardless of going into safe mode or last known config, same issue. I put the winxp disc in and unable to get a dir of the c: or change to any folder, was able to do a check disk which found one or more errors. any ideas?

Sounds like the HD got fried in the power outage. Can you take it out of the box and slave it on a different computer to see if you can access it from there?

MiniPE would be great here if you are familiar with it/get ahold of it

Throw the XP install disc back in, this time choose to install XP. Before the installer acually begins installing, it will realize there's a previous install of XP and offer to repair it.

Choose to let it automatically repair. The repair console is a totally different tool you may notice in the menus, and it's not the one I'm reccomending. If you do choose the repair console, you'll end up at a black command screen and you likely won't know what to do. That means you chose the wrong option. Reboot and try again.

It's conterintuitive that you have to choose to install XP before you get to the auto repair option, but that's how it works.

It'll basically reinstall XP over XP. Your data should remain relatively stafe. Assuming the drive's alive but the OS was damaged during the power outage, this is the best shot you have at repairing the installation.

Of course, if you can't get the installer to even recognize there's a previous install, you may have a fairly dead HD. Then I'd take meanSpleen's advice and throw the drive in another PC and see if it's even accessable. If it is, get the data off, then continue screwing with it if you want.

Just as a fun historical side note, the first recorded use of the term Blue Screen of Death came from a contest at Salon, where you were supposed to translate error messages into haiku.