unmountable_boot_volume

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Guest

Received unmountable_boot_volume error STOP: 0X000000ED (0X8A504900,
0XC0000001, 0X00000000, 0X00000000) message after sudden power shutdown.
Ran Recovery Console chkdsk c: /r which completed only 60% then gave "The
volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems." What would
have caused this? Does this mean there is a bad section to the hard drive?
The computer is a Dell 4600 with SATA hard drives. OS was Win XP SP1. I got
TestDisk software but how to run it if can only get to DOS prompt from
reinstallation cd? Any suggestions appreciated.
Bob
 
The only way I have ever been able to recover from an "unrecoverable error
on the volume" is to delete all partitions off of the drive, create new
partitions and then format said partitions. Even this is not a sure thing. I
have had to toss more than a few drives due to this error message.

Use your warranty, if you still have it.

An aside:

If I install a drive on an Adaptec ATA-133 controller card I will get that
error message every time I try to run chkdsk on that drive. The controller
card also does not support S.M.A.R.T. This, in fact, may be the
"unrecoverable error" that chkdsk complains to me about.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Let me ask some simple questions. I bought the unit used and there are no
warrantees' involved. There are 2 SATA drives, C & D both are 200GB. C
drive is loaded with data I do not want to lose. I have a new cd of XP pro.
Shopuld I switch the C and D SATA cables and do the partitioning on the empty
drive?
 
did you try chkdsk from the reinstall CD? You might run some tools from
floppy if you can access a: while in DOS.
Michael
 
Bob_r said:
Received unmountable_boot_volume error STOP: 0X000000ED (0X8A504900,
0XC0000001, 0X00000000, 0X00000000) message after sudden power shutdown.
Ran Recovery Console chkdsk c: /r which completed only 60% then gave "The
volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems." What would
have caused this? Does this mean there is a bad section to the hard
drive?
The computer is a Dell 4600 with SATA hard drives. OS was Win XP SP1. I
got
TestDisk software but how to run it if can only get to DOS prompt from
reinstallation cd? Any suggestions appreciated.
Bob
Click to expand...


Go to the web site of the manufacturer of your hard drive. They may provide
downloadable diagnostic utilities (that run off a DOS bootable floppy) to
test your drive. You can get images of DOS bootable floppies from
http://www.bootdisk.com (but you'll need another host, like the one you used
to post to these newsgroups, to run their program to lay the image onto the
floppy). Some diagnostic tools are also provided as an image where you run
their program that lays the image onto a floppy to make it bootable and run
their diagnostic program. If TestDisk is something that Dell provides,
you'll have to read their manual or call them on how to use their diagnostic
program. Dell might have help pages at their support site but I'm not going
to create a bogus account just to get into their privatized knowledgebase.

The question is if your BIOS supports SATA-connected drives without using a
software driver loaded by an OS so that the drive is usable from a DOS
environment where you won't be loading the SATA driver that you load in
Windows. If you can see your SATA-connected hard drive from a DOS prompt
using a bootable floppy, you can run their diagnostics program; else, you
need to see if there is a DOS-mode SATA driver you can add to config.sys to
provide access to the SATA-connected hard drive. I suggest NOT moving the
hard drive from the SATA port to an IDE port if the drive uses a SATA-to-IDE
adapter. The translation geometry used by the SATA controller may not match
what is used by the IDE controller.
 
Thanks for the reply. What I was considering was swapping the two SATA hard
drives at the motherboard connectors for SATA or just swapping the cables.
The purpose was to not lose any data files on the original C drive.
Unfortunately the computer did not have a floppy drive. I added an LS120
super drive after purchase. So do you actually think that swapping the
cables for C & D drive would be bad if I was going to do a complete install
of XP ??
 
I understand you have 2 issues: a. unbootable (system)drive, and b.
installing a secondary SATA drive.

1. check your SATA cable - wiggle it a little - and see if the boot drive is
recognized in BIOS; this might fix it.
2. otherwise, set your secondary drive (the refurbished or whatever) as
primary boot drive in BIOS - alternatively, swap the cables or simply
install only the second drive (the one w/out files)
3. Install XP on the empty drive - you will probably need the SATA drives
floppy at XP install (one way arround is to create a custom XP install CD
including the SATA drivers).
4. Install XP normally, then plug in the non-booting drive; as long as it is
not assigned as the boot drive, it will be assigned another drive letter;
extract whatever file you need or fit its MBR....
Michael
 
That is right. The two SATA drives are on the machine that will not boot.
One has 2 partitions (current boot drive) a FAT 39mb (32mb free) and C:
partition NTFS with 114gb (76.3mb free). The second drive shows one
partition NTFS with 114gb (110gb free). What is the FAT partition for??
Would I just be using the NTFS partition on the second drive to load windows
into?? Thanks
 
Sure, you can pick any partition you want at XP install; the FAT partition
migh be an older OS or for backup/imaging purpose... you'll see what's on
it. For 30 days you can test XP on whicever (one at a time)partition you
want.
Michael
 
I have had this problem, with the cd-rom disks, you may want to make a
back-up of your original disk. Samsung drives gave me the most headache.
 
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