PCTech Forums

40GIG HDD
WIN XP--CELERON 1.6GHZ PROC--1 PARTITION

Each time i try to boot up, a dark blue screen appears telling me that windows has shut down to prevent damage due a problem, then it reads "UNMOUNTABLE BOOT VOLUME".
The system tells me to restart the pc press f8 for advanced options and use last known good configuration.Needless to say , I have tried this with no success.

I have tried CHKDSK/R and FIXBOOT:C but it gives me a error message "THE COMMAND IS NOT RECOGNIZED TYPE HELP FOR A LIST OF SUPPORTED COMMANDS".
Also when I try to read my c: directory it gives me a error message "AN ERROR OCCURED DURING DIRECTORY ENUMERATION."
Have tons of info on the hard drive and can't afford to lose it.Unfortunately I did not backup my data.
Could u please assist me .Thx. Cheers

You "almost" had the right commands.Boot from your Xp disk and press R to enter the recovery console.Type chkdsk /p (very important that there's a space between chkdsk and /p) and press enter, once thats done type fixboot and press enter.Press Y at the prompt and then type exit. It should reboot and go back into windows.


If that doesnt work, you can use chkdsk /r then exit but it usually takes alot longer.

What happens to actually cause an error like this?

It's probably because your boot.ini file is messed up.

Yes, there is some kind of problem in the MBR, I had a very similiar problem not to long ago. What liljim said is correct, however I suggest skipping the chkdsk /p and going right to chkdsk /r. It will most likely save you time because the chksdk /p probably won't work, it didn't for me anyway, so I ended up doing both commands which took FOREVER!

Without going too much off topic here... what does the boot.ini contain and what does it do?

Boot.ini is a hidden read only text file stored in the root of the system partition. It's the file that Ntldr reads in order to know what options and timeout to present.
More info here»

Where can i find the list of chkdsk / (options?). I thought there was only one. Something else new Ive learnt from this site! ;)

There's certainly more than one, this will explain some of them to you

http://www.computerhope.com/chkdskh.htm

Oh,and one more thing Why would a corrupt boot.ini file stop Windows from actually booting? It does'nt seem to contain anything I can see that should interfere with it.

Excelent questions..Its great to see people wanting to learn new things.

Here's a microsoft article with boot.ini information

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/docu ... r_masc.asp

In short, boot.ini tells windows what partition to boot from, if that gets corrupted it cannot boot. The article has alot more info that should help you understand its importance.

Thats it,no more questions!!

Thing Ive noticed about PC maintence is that the more you learn,the more you realize there is to learn!!! :s

Thanks for all your help ;)

Actually after reading that link you pointed to,could'nt GTS have just tried to repair his/her boot.ini file?