Unmountable boot volume, help!
 

Ok, so i get this computer in from a relative to fix it. Power up, blue screen of death, with an unmountable boot volume problem. So i load up the recovery console, and do a 'FIXBOOT C:', nothing. Then i do a CHKDSK /R and it fixes the problem. So i repair about 40-50 viruses after that, during which time i restart several times. Im fairly confident i got all the viruses. I restart one last time to clear any funny messages on startup, and i get the blue screen again, with the same error.

Any ideas on whats corrupting the disk?

Its a gateway machine, 1.6 Ghz Celeron, 80 gb WDD HD, Windows XP Pro. Need anything, ill be at work, thanks in advance!

have you run scans with ad-aware, spybot, and anti-virus (using most recent definitions)?

the last time i saw something like this, the woman's computer was infected with a master boot virus. it corrupted her anti-virus (norton) rendering it unable to get the latest defs. when it ran live update, it returned an error then stopped the download. when scanning, it returned 0 results.

adaware and NAV, yes

spybot, no

I downloaded the updates in exe files (not autoupdates) to update them

Ill try spybot and get back to you

the drive could be dying too

Re: Unmountable boot volume, help!
 

Okay... chkdsk does not fix viruses.

Those things it was fixing were bad sectors of the disk. Unless this is a re-occouring problem you don't have to worry about it.

If it ever happens again...
boot to recovery console

fixboot
fixmbr
chkdsk /r

If it happens contunually, you need to find out WHY. It is eaither that your hard drive is failing (unlikely but possible) or your powersupply is going bad (again... not likely) or you are doing something stupid like turning off your computer while saving somthing to the disk (most likely IMO).

Did this happen to occour after a power failure or after you rebooted without properly shutting down the PC by any chance?

The drive is dead, unmountable boot volume means you need a new drive. It has happened to me many times...

i have had this error. I fixed it by loading my drive into brothers comp and runing scan disk on it. Im still using this dive to this day. So unmouted boot volume does not always mean its dead. the drive im ussing atm had had that blue scrren 2 times and i still have not replaced it.

No it doesnt. I work at a helpdesk during the schoolyear, and I fix an unmountable boot volume about once a week. *Never* has it been a bad hard drive. Worked just fine after chkdsk /r.

agreed, I too have also fixed this problem with just chkdsk. Check out http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ its called "bartpe" and it kicks ass. A great utility.

I've seen a tricky trojan that couldn't be removed...regardless of the clean tool used. Format was the only solution. Have you pulled the data and reformatted?