Unmountable Boot Volume (Dell, Fix)
So you’re using your Dell laptop (in this case a Dell Inspiron 1501 running Windows XP Professional) with no problems, turn it on one day and you get that gorgeous blue screen of death telling you that you’ve an unmountable boot volume. You call Dell support and they take you through diagnostic tests, get you to boot in safe mode (which won’t work by the way) and then they tell you to launch the recovery console or reinstall Windows.
Reinstall? No sirree!
Getting around this problem today (see previous post) here’s what I did (not my laptop as the MacBook Pro doesn’t throw up those kind of errors)…
- With the laptop on the blue screen, grab your Windows XP CD (might be branded as a Dell Reinstallation CD), pop it into the CD drive and reboot the laptop.
- When prompted, press any key to boot from CD, allowing a minute or so for drivers to load in the background.
- From the first menu you see, press ‘R’ to launch the recovery console. This will launch a dos-prompt driven recovery console allowing some basic disk commands.
- Enter your first command: “chkdsk /r” (give about 20-30 minutes to run).
- When completed, follow up with “chkdsk /p” (give about 2 minutes to run).
- Finally, follow up with “fixboot c:”. This will quickly test the boot sector and prompt you to write a new one. It is likely that the boot sector on your drive has become corrupt, once you agree to write a new bootsector, allow a half minute or so for the task to run until prompted with a success message.
- Type ‘EXIT’ to quit the recovery console and restart the laptop.
That… should be that. It helps to have the original Dell XP disc though. A standalone version wouldn’t display the recovery console menu on launch but the Dell OEM version does (purple coloured CD including Service Pack 1a - it’s been a while). Of course, if the disc doesn’t boot when you restart the computer it may be possible that you’re BIOS is looking to the hard drive before the CD. In that case you’ll need to enter the Dell BIOS (pressing F2 for setup on immediate restart). See here (Dell support) for specific details.
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to keep up to date with kenmc.com. Maybe some of my earlier posts will interest you too! Thanks for visiting kenmc.com!
Any suggestions on how to repair this if I can’t use the CD-rom. I’m manually telling it to boot from CD but it isn’t recognising it. (i.e. is there anything do to load files onto an external hard drive and use them to repair my dell.)
THANK YOU!!! That screen scares the S**T out of me whenever I see it. YOU GEM!
Dez,
No problem, hope it worked out for you!
Who’d have thought I’d be following my own advice today!
Fix also applies to a Dimension 3100C that refuses to boot (with no obvious error message on the blue screen)
You sooooo ROCK!!! I even got to keep all of my files. How is it that you know this but the 4 Dell Techs I spent weeks with just say… The Hard Drive is fried. WITHOUT EVEN SUGGESTING THIS FIX.
Glad I could be of help
I get the Unmountable_ Boot _volum screen, reboot and gives me options to select Safe mode, safe mode with promts,ect, however when i select one of them, I still get the blue screen.. I tried putting in the purple dell cd and still get the same thing
You’ll have to make sure that your CD is set to boot before your hard drive.
This can be done by going into your BIOS, pressing F2 at the Dell screen when your machine is starting up.
Find your boot options (will list CD drive, hard drive, network drive, USB etc.) and make sure that your CD drive is at the top of the list. If it’s not at the top of the list then put it to the top of the list, save your changes and exit with the CD still in the drive.
Reboot the machine and it should give you the option to boot from CD (the CD will start before your hard drive, thus skipping the hard drive error).
I got it!! you are the bomb!! thank you so much, I was so worried I had to buy another laptop!
Ohhh My Gosh! Ken McGuire, I’m going to kiss you in the mouth! Be sure to open wide! My son and his friend played games on my laptop and corrupted it. I spent 2 hrs, (78 mins on hold), with Dell Support, only to be transferred 4 times, hung up on once and told I would have to restore my computer back to when I received it to fix the error. I was going to give it to Geek Squad tomorrow, but decided to search the internet again for the fix. Your steps above worked PERFECTLY! Open your mouth wide, because I’m going to bend you backwards and kiss you sooooo hard in your mouth!!!!!!!!!!SMOOCHES!
Tonya, delighted I can be of some help!
I usually dont leave comments on web sites. I usually dont see the need and find it pointless. But let me tell you bud, you are a life saver. All the files from me and my wife, the birth of my new born child, everything was on there. That stuff is just priceless and irreplacable. So i now find it necessary to thank you and let everyone know hown great this is. THANK YOU
Steven,
No worries mate, glad I could be of some assistance to you! There’s nothing worse than the fear of losing everything you’ve got on your computer - particularly when it comes to irreplaceable photos and videos!
Might be handy to back them up now too
K
Thank You. I just fixed my Dell unmountable boot volume with your above instructions you are a life saver.
How about on a desktop? It won’t even let me go into safe mode or any mode for that matter. Please help!!!!
Ty, have you tried following the same steps above if you’re getting that same error? They are also applicable to desktop models.
Hey Ken, this would be fantastic if only I could ever get a screen that asks me to boot from disc! I put in the disc, and the same screens come up. Try to start in some kind of safe mode, but it brings up the files, then the blue screen of death…with the unmountable boot volume.
I pressed F2 and got the dell dimension 4400 setup screen—which gave me no options!
Can you help me?
The Dell Dimension screen should give you some options by letting you into the BIOS? or Do you have a different keyboard button for the BIOS? You’ll see a note when you first boot up your computer.
In the BIOS screen you’lll need to find the option to set your boot configuration, a list of drives / devices that are checked in order when your computer boots up (starts up). In your case I’m guessing your hard drive is at the top of the list as it’s skipping the CD. If this is so, find your CD ROM drive in the list and place it at the top (usually by highlighting it and pressing the + key to move it up the list). If the CD is at the top of the list, your computer will check for bootable CDs first before starting Windows.
As your Windows XP CD is a bootable CD you’ll be able to follow the steps above as normal.
Hope that helps!
You deserve an award! Thank you so much…I never would have figured out that bios thing, if not for you. It was set to boot from the floppy first, then the C drive, and the CD was disabled! Darn kids! I can only think that they messed with it, and that is how it happened.
Thank you so much. I was doing my taxes and praise the Lord I was getting a refund, when this thing went out! So, bless your heart for helping fools like me! I pray that God will bless you, truly.
Right now, I am waiting for the recovery disc to do it’s job. Even if I still have problems, I think you are the best!!
Any ideas on what to do if you only have a regular Win XP Cd? Can’t find my Dell recovery cd, but I do have a regular admin Win XP disc. I tried your steps but it doesnt seem to work because of the diff cd. Either that or my cd drive is bad now too. I could burn something to a USB thumb drive if that helps. I dont even care at this point if I have to reformat, at the moment all I have is a paperweight.
My info: Dell inspirion B130, got the blue screen out of the blue, and it isnt budging (my guess…my teenager did it somehow, she tried to install the SIMs and that was the last I saw this laptop work)
Any help would be appreciated, I am about giving up on it.
Melissa
Melissa,
How far along the steps did you get? Can you bring up the recovery console as outlined above?
Couldn’t get the recovery console up, but I did reboot holding down Fn key when powering up to get to the diagnostics, it passed through all the immediate quick tests, I went to the tree to choose to test just ‘windows blue screen’ options, and I am 98% through that with everything passing. I guess thats good but doesnt help much, and I see no options to repair or restore, just diagnose and test.
Melissa, that is all I had, was the recovery CD. Do what Ken suggested I do, and make sure your bios are set to run from the cd first.
Ken, I have another problem. Everything works fantastic! But, now I have a “freeze” problem. When the screensaver comes on, it freezes. And when I right click on the desk top to get the properties to come up, it freezes and I can not do anything. It will not shut down, won’t move. Like the keyboard and mouse are disconnected. I have to shut the computer off, and sometimes it won’t even let me do that! I have to turn off the power to the computer. But, it boots up and works just beautiful!
Computers are so much fun, eh?
Hi Ken,
Thanks for the advice but I would like to ask for some further assistance. I’ve run the steps you outlined (console, chkdsk /r, chkdsk /p, fixboot c:, exit). My machine now starts up and goes to a black screen with the mouse pointer in the middle (mouse is operational) and the “safe mode” text in the corners as well as the os with build number at the top.
Have you had any experience with anything like this? I also ran the dell diagnostics and got an error, but I don’t recall the code. I can rerun and provide that if needed.
_ramy
If you can re run the test, or flag which diagnostic run it actually fails in?
Anything of note from the chkdsk tests and fixing the boot record?
Hi Ken, trying to redo…but, when I get to the recovery console, I can not type the command, “chkdsk”…anything. Because it only lets me type one letter. IN the dos promt, it asks “which windows installation would you like to log onto”
above the prompt, there is:
1: C:\WINDOWS
I pressed the #1 and hit enter, and it asked for an administrator password. I do not have one.
Now what?
Hi Ken, trying to redo…but, when I get to the recovery console, I can not type the command, “chkdsk”…anything. Because it only lets me type one letter. IN the dos promt, it asks “which windows installation would you like to log onto”
above the prompt, there is:
1: C:\WINDOWS
I pressed the #1 and hit enter, and it asked for an administrator password. I do not have one.
Now what?
Woohoo! Ok thanks very much Ken, you’d be rich if you were Dell’s Tech Support Center I am sure
It passed ALL tests for hard drive, blue screen…who knows? I swear it was the SIMs that killed it. Anyway, end result, I went back & tried to get into that recovery things again and it worked, it was very picky about me first holding down CTRL, then adding in the F11, then letting them both go at exactly the same time, but it worked, I just reformatted the darn thing, so now I am back to having my laptop back, all squeaky clean too. All is well, thanks to you some tech guy over here didn’t get half my paycheck
So Ken, should you ever find yourself in Virginia, US, I owe you a pint or three
Thanks again! Cool blog by the way.
i also got the blue screen i tried everything but it goes back to the blue screen i heard of the chkdsk thing but it wont work for me because my cd-rom drive does not read any disk and my laptop does not support floppy disk…………any help please…..is there a way to do it without the disk or floppy if not then i guess will have to send it in to get repaired but i dnt want to loose my files please help………………
@Melissa If I ever find myself in Virginia I’ll give you a shout about the pints!
@rah It may be possible to remove your hard drive from your laptop and access it from a PC, possibly with a 2.5″ IDE laptop drive to pc mounting kit, a tricky process but any repair shop should be able to do it for you, using the PC to access and repair your laptop’s HD.
Is the CD Rom drive broken or is it set to boot AFTER your HD? If you look in the BIOS setup menu for your laptop, make sure your CD Rom drive is set to boot up first and try again with the CD.
You shouldn’t have to lose your files at all.
Hey Ken,
A little more information about my earlier comment. The test that fails is labeled :
“–Start DST Short Test–”
and the output is as follows:
“Test Results : Fail
Error Code : 1000-0146
MSG : Unit 0: DST Log contains previous error(s).”
I’m not sure how to get to the “DST log”. I continue with the test after this one fails (after being prompted) and come to this prompt:
“No Diagnostic Utility Partition found. To run diagnostics, insert your Dell “Drivers and Utilities” CD, then select OK to restart the system and boot off the CD.”
Unfortunately, I don’t have the Drivers and Utilities CD.
Nothing of note after running the chkdsk /r aside from one “error found, now recovering” type of message (i don’t remember the exact terms). The console works till completion though.
Thanks a lot Ken. You’ve been a big help man! Now i got all of my pics from all my deployments thanks to you!!!
@Ryan Glad to be of assistance
Hi,
My wife has a dell dimension 8400 and received this same error. We’ve been trying to boot from the cd, but the cd can’t be read in either the cd or dvd drive. We hear it trying to read/the light goes on, but then it stops and no boot. It says boot device is not available. Any suggestions?
Thanks
Hi Ken,
I wish I read your fix on this website earlier. I had the Unmountable Boot Volume erro. I called DELL support. They are nice. But I finally was instruced to reinstall every thing on my labtop. I have XP home editon and MediaDirect reinstallation CDs. The machine has just out of warranty. I am afraid, I may not be able to reinstall every thing on my laptop. I am wondering, do you have any tip for that?
Thank you.
Heather
Hi Ken,
I had been having problems with the blue screen error and used your fix - worked to perfection.
Couple days later during reboot i have a message telling me C:WINDOWS missing or corrupted file
It advises me to access Windows Setup and press R.
I have done this and gone through the steps again of chkdsk etc.
At each stage of the chkdsk it stops at 50% and gives the message that I have unrecoverable errors.
Doesn’t sound good - any ideas where to from now?
hi ken, found this site and have the same problem with the blue screen. When I do try to do a repair it asks me for what installation I want to repair and it only gives me f:\minint does that mean I wont be able to save any of my files because my hard drive is dead?
Ok , so what if you dont have the Windows XP CD anymore and not only that but your CD ROM DRIVE wasnt working in the first place. One day my laptop fell off the coffee table and the CD ROM DRIVE came out. Ever since then it hasnt worked. It runs at least i think it does it makes the normal noise but it doesnt run the cd. Do you know how to fix that and also where to get the Windows XP CD? Please help!
Ken,
ok, Ken I am already in the command prompt screen but when I type “chkdsk/r” it tells me “The command is not recognized”. What do I do?
Hey Krish,
you gotta make sure you have a space before /r. should be ‘chkdsk /r’
Hey man.. any suggestions if what you suggested DOESN’T work?
Cuz it didn’t work … I’m using (or trying to use) a Dell Inspiron E1505…. I’m about to R.I.P. this laptop…. please help!
Ken, I have an Inspiron E1405. This is not working for me. This is the SECOND time I have faced this. The first time ended with me starting completely over. I don’t want to do that again. If you can offer anymore of your sage advice, I would appreciate it very much.
Hey! I got the error msg unmountable boot volume. I have followed your directions but it never goes into the repair mode. It just brings up the partitions and ask if I want to delete reinstall. When I try reinstalling it goes through the steps but does not work…it keeps rebooting. Please help!
I just tried this fix on my Dell Inspiron E1505 and it went through all of the procedures fine and succesfully written the new bootsector but when I restart it just goes back to the blue screen with the unmountable boot volume error.
Any suggestions on what else to try?
Thanks
Hey!
I also have this issue.
But when i use the chkdsk /r it takes a few seconds,,,and then the computer reboots.
any ideas/.
hi i alos have the error on my computer. i jave a dell insipiron 1150 but i bought it second hand and has no discs with it? is there anyway to sort it with out the disk or to get another disk?
Ken, you are the macdaddy! I thought i’d have to buy a new computer before I read your solution page. You have been added to my favourites.
Many thanks
wat blue screen and how do i get to it?
Well, I followed your steps, and it worked!
Just wanted to say thanks
@jay, @jason You’re welcome.
Ken,
Ok I turned on my Dell Inspiron 6000 with windows xp and I have the blue screen of death with an unmountable_Boot_volume tech info 0×000000ED and do not have any xp or dell disk. Now how do I fix it. I have another desk top computer with xp but I dont know if you can make a boot disk from it. Dell was no help nor was Microsoft. Any Idea’s I cant even get to the BIOS menu.
@Bryan,
It is possible you could remove your hard disk from the 6000 and try mount it to the desktop PC and run the chkdsk etc. that way. You would need to get a data cable for the drive to connect to the desktop’s motherboard.
Alternative is to borrow, where possible, an XP CD .
Hi ken on my computer I keep getting DST Short Not Applicable then the test fails then at the end it say
No Diagnostic Utility Partition Found. To run insert Dell Drivers and Utilities CD then select ok. But unfortantly I don’t have the CD
What do I do
Oh man thanks for that. I actually can’t thank you enough. If you’re ever in my town you can stay in my house, drive my car, eat my food and take your pick of my sisters. I was a couple of chapters from completing a book and I thought I’d lost it - the set of instructions above got it back. Thanks again, much appreciated.
Hello Ken,
My computer has just went done i have a xps dell desktop, i tried you suggestion. but all is well till i press the “r” key, after that it just goes to a blue screen with WINDOWS XP PROFESSIONAL SETUP on top and at the bottom it says EXAMINING 152587 MB DISK 0 AT ID 0 ON BUS 0 ON IASTOR. No dos- prompt has come up, it has been like this for a hour or so.
Any Suggestions.
Thanks for the help
Darmesh
Thanks so much..you saved a relative of mine from the blue screen of death! This worked for him perfectly…
@Rob - You’re welcome
@Darmesh - Have you tried any hard disk scanners to see if the drive itself is at fault? IBM have some available for download online (google search) that you can run as a bootable CDRom. They’ll quickly tell you whether your hard drive is in danger or not.
You are simply a king ! I went through all steps using a windows XP Pro CD in english but my Dell was running a XP Home in french, and it worked as well.
Thanks a million
Oh I love you so much Ken McGuire. You rock. The “chkdsk /r” part took a really long time, but no matter, you saved my life. Thank you thank you thank you!!!
Hey do you know how to get your administrative password becasue i followed these steps which dell also did not tell me to but it asks me for the password and i entered my noram password and aparently its not your normal password to get into your computer
thanks
how do you repair the unmountable volumne without a window’s xp disk, when i click on safe mode lots of files going flying up and it goes back to the blue screen again. i DO NOT want to format, as i have lots of photo’s and music on my computer. adobe photoshop has been giving a few problems for a while, could that be the cause of it.
@susie
Best thing I can suggest is to borrow a disc from somebody? The XP pro disc will have the repair option on it.
@jordan
Did you get your computer secondhand? Or is it your own? If it’s your own, you would have set the admin password on first boot of XP.
just deleted the sound program by mistake.it is just saying sndvol32.exe missing.it’s a second hand pc and i haven’t got the disc to repair it.can u help plz?
@alain
Have you tried searching online for a copy of the file?
no my computer is new-ish, i wanted to try connecting my laptop into the desktop to get the files off it that way. but i don’t know how to do the connection, is there a step by step program on the internet that would show you how to do this.
This goes back to the dreaded “Unmountable Boot Volume”. It is in a Dell laptop. I tried the repair (chkdsk /r) but after 40% it stopped and I got the message “cannot continue, drive has more problems”. Since there was nothing really on it anyway, I decided to just fdisk and reinstall. Fdisk won’t touch it it either. I’ve tried a number of programs to just blow the drive away and start from scratch but nothing seems to get through it.
Do you have any suggestions short of replacing the drive?
@John
Have you considered mounting the laptop’s drive into a PC and checking / scanning / repairing that way?
You could try (name escapes me of one) a bootable hard disk diagnostic CD… IBM and (i think) Hitachi have released bootable downloads, searchable via google. The idea here is that you create the bootable CD in another machine, run it on the laptop, the diagnostic software runs on boot and will scan your hard disk for phsysical / read / write errors. Based on the error codes returned you would get an idea on whether the drive is dead or not, something that could be the case.
Hi
Can you advise if Dell will ship out a driver CD in Ireland?
They have this submission form for the USA, but it wont work for Ireland.
My problem: AVG detected a Trojan Horse.Backdoor.9BAMQ virus and AVG put the infected files in its vault.
I lost access to all peripherals, including USB/DVD/Video Card/NIC/Wireless/Sound/etc. andcould access the machine bar locally to a poor quality svreen.
I eventually managed to get a Boot USB stick going, and got into the machine, downloaded some drivers from Dell, and managed to sort out video and USB only, then with lots of frustration the NIC card which now will not respond to DHCP, so I have fixed IP Addresses/DNS; and no Wireless operable.
I am tearing my diminishing hair out, and cannot get sound/DVD/wireless operable.
What will XP OS Repair do from the purple disc?
The way I see it I need a source for the drivers required to restore the machine, a Dell 630M.
HELP! Any ideas/advie please?
I believe that the virus is still resident, but I have been unable to clean it with AVG virus removal tools or Avasti.
Regards,
Derek
Please Help! After my bf got this blue screen I looked up on the internet what to do. I saw your steps and other similar ones as well, and told him he needs to reinstall his windows XP, which he didn’t have. His dad had his Home Edition, so they went to work on reinstalling; however, they didn’t wait for me to tell them the next steps and reinstalled with out going into the recovery console. He has windows xp, but not programs, no files, not even wirless internet capability. Is there any way we can start over to recover at least his wirless internet capability. Oh, by the way, it won’t even connect to the internet through an ethernet cable. If you have any ideas or thoughts that would be great. Thank you.
yes i got the windows xp disc from Dell, along with 6 other disc’s with all of the software that is on my computer. i used the disc to recover the system and it worked, just have a bit of a problem with zonealarm now. it seems to have a lot of virus’s on it, when my computer came back it disappeared and when i tried to get it back it came up with a box that said multyply virus threats. so zonealarm is almost gone at the moment, there are just two of the folders i can’t get rid of, it says it can’t delete them because the disc is full or write protected. any idea how i can delete zonealarm fully.
Susie, are you saying you got the discs post purchase or with the machine?
All I recieved with the machine was the XP purple disc and 2 discs for MS Office.I am looking for the driver disc, but no joy to order via web. The machine is now out of warranty as well.
I have also tried the drivers from the web, but no success to get audio and DVD running, and video drivers.
Getting back to your problem on Zone Alarm you should be able to uninstall via Control Panel
Thanks,
Derek
@Derek
yes i got the disc’s post purchase. i got my computer in 2005, so it was well out of warranty as well. they were really helpfull, and i’ve got all the software on the disc’s that is also on my computer. which is very handy incase anything else goes wrong.
i rang there “tech support for home” phone number i got on there website.
yeah i deleted all the files belonging to zonealarm off my computer last night, i found them all eventually. but when i went to go try put it on again it came up with a load of multiply virus’s on an alert box, and all to do with zonealarm.
does that mean i have a virus on my computer now or spyware?
i am a bit worried incase there is a virus on it, i don’t like not having zonealarm, but when it won’t let me put it back on what do you do?
@Derek
again, just after re-reading all of message again. i have driver disc’s, they are blue in colour. can’t remember exactly whats on them now though as i’m in work, but it does say drivers on the disc’s, those are the one’s i got when i did buy the computer in 2005.
Susie,
Thanks for the input. I will try and call Dell to arrange discs. I recieved a blue disc with an earlier laptop, but not with this laptop, as purchased in 2006.
Suggest you see what other tools make of the problem as well:
The free Spyware Doctor seems to work effectively for Spyware removal.[I used the Google tools version]
Also free, the Grisoft AVG virus removal clean-up tool might assist.
Good Luck!
Regards,
Derek
Derek,
i was reading earlier on a zonealarm forum that the problem could be with AVG, according to it, due to the new release, AVG thinks its malware. so i have to go into my AVG user interface and change the exceptions in the sheild, hopefully when i try this it will work.
i’m from Ireland as well and i had to ring them when i got the dreaded blue screen, i found them to be very helpfull.
Good Luck,
Susie
Hello Ken,
My problem is that I get the blue screen but no error message. i am using windows 2000. Help, I can’t lose a lot information. what do i do.
Thanks
Gustavo
Just fixed this blue screen of death and all is fine, however I just did the CHKDSK /R as instructed by the dell website and no fix boot etc - should i go back and redo?
Also the blue sign is a clear indication of things not right - after backing up !!!! is there anything I can do to actually fix it ie does this ultimately mean a replacement of the hard drive? Thanks Saff
is there any way to create a Windows XP dell boot CD for an inspirion B130? so I can get this repaired…i’ve been to the dell website and can’t seem to find it.
any suggestions please - even if its something that is blatantly in front of me, will you please call me out on it….I’m super flustered and frustrated…thanks so much!!
I am working on a friend’s computer who is experiencing the “unmountable boot volume error. As I am fairly knowledgeable about PC’s, I have booted from the OS Install CD, got to the recovery console, ran chkdsk \r, chkdsk \p and fixboot. After all that I still receive the error, any other suggestions. This person wants to keep all of their information, so reinstalling the OS is out of the question.
Thanks!
I’m sure ken is saying to himself right now… why oh why did i ever post this fix…what a can of worms this has turned out to be.
HEHE
Thanks Ken! I have this problem on my Inspirion B120; I just got my laptop back from the Geek Squad, which ran a diagnostic and told me basically I’m screwed, all data lost, irretreivable. Could this possibly true? I told them not to replace the hard drive because I wanted to try what you suggested on my own.
my CS major brother told me all i had to do was reinstall windows from the disc, which unfortunately I don’t have. I called Dell and reordered it. Do I have a prayer?
Everytime i do the chkdsk /r it freezes and when i do reformat it and get all my drivers on there, it will get a unmountable boot volume error when i put any sort of file on there
such as mp3, avi, video file ect.
It will only do a unmountable boot volume error when i put a new file on there
any suggestons?
Ken, I have a Dell inspirion dell b130 too but my laptop just ran out of warranty last year and I can’t find my recovery CD; I also don’t know how to make a Windows CD boot disk; my other laptop only can makes CDs not floppies; I did go ahead and change the BIOS so that when I can get a CD to boot from it will read from the drive with the CD’s first; I tried to do it with a flash drive but it wouldn’t let me ….any suggestions my friend…I appreciate anything you have to offer that would assist so I don’t have to pay Dell for another recovery CD….I’m sure that you may be able to get me out of this jam…..thank you so much
Hi Ken
After receiving the blue screen of death, I ran though your chkdsk /r, chkdsk /p and fixboot c: routeens on my Dell Inspiron 1501 and it does now get me in, but it takes about 2 minutes from turning on the laptop until I see the black timer bar screen that loads Win XP.
Also, once in to the laptop the whole thing is so slow.
I have run Spybot S & D, Hijack This, Norton Internet Security and AVG root kit and found nothing. (Obviously I have uninstalled each of the above after using).
I am going to run a defrag, but I am now running out of options to fix the long delay on startup and the slowness of the laptop.
Any further ideas or do you think the HDD is screwed???
@gemma
If you’re worried about the hard drive I would suggest performing a test / fitness test on the drive. IBM and Hitachi distribute fitness test and hard drive diagnostic programs that can run pre-boot, letting you know whether certain areas of the hard drive are damaged, safe or otherwise.
Do you run any virtual drive software (like virtual CD rom drives for mounting disc images)? Sometimes the drivers loaded during boot for virtual cd rom drives can increase load times. A Defrag might be an option for you, and don’t forget about a scan disc run as well to repair possible surface errors.
This google search (link below) should give you options on hard drive tests but you would need to read up on them yourself.
http://url.ie/wv4
I am get the bluescreen of death, unmountable to boot volume. I do not have an XP cd. Do you have ANY suggestions???
@Sara
First suggestion is to borrow an XP pro CD from somebody, you don’t need to reinstall from their disc or buy a new license but the CD gives you access to the recovery console and tools mentioned above.
I got to the recovery console it gets to 50% then stops and my computer shuts off which it has been doing alot of lately. I figured it was just a virus so I ran a virus cleaner and yeah I did have a few so I cleaned it. The computer was running faster but still keeps shutting down. How do I fix this problem? So that I can get rid of the death screen as well. Thanks.
have a dell dimension 3100c, had to format de disk and now it would not boot if there is no win xp disc in the cd rom. if i remove the disk it comes up with an error that i should push f1. i need it to boot with out the disk. pls help.
@tope Check your BIOS settings to make sure that your hard drive is actually detected and included in the boot process.
I have a dell that has worked great until I got the blue screen, unmountable boot volume. Just before that I was online watching a live volleyball game and lost power (not sure that matters). I couldn’t do anything on the blue screen like it said - press F8, etc. Then my husband (who knows nothing about computers) started pushing buttons and somehow got it to a diagnostics screen and ran the “symptom tree”. The errors we got were error code OFOO:0244 msg block 91820: uncorrectable data error or media is write protected. ide disk s/n=MRGA1WKBJ8ADTJ read test fail. It then asked if we wanted to continue, yes, then the same error again. we continued and the next error was OFOO:1A44 msg block and everything was the same except verify test fail. I am sick to think I may have lost so many irreplacable family pictures, please help.
Hey Wiz-zard guy…
I can’t seem to go past the bloody blue screen even with the disk in the drive…how do I get it to beyond Unmountable Boot Volume?
Hi Ken
Thanks for the info above.
Now after sitting in XP for about 3 hours my laptop has started to beep. But not the sort of beep that is constant on boot up (for memory issues) just now and again like a little bird and I have checked all the devices, in device manager and there are no error messages either anywhere.
I think this could soon be the end for my hard drive, so I think I may get a new one to be on the safe side.
Hey Ken,
Need help. I followed all the steps that you outlined and created the new boot sectore (fixboot c:) however when I restart my computer I still get the unmountable_boot_volume!
Any pointers? Thanks!
Am having this problem as well with my desktop. When I put in the boot disk and boot from it, I get a different menu with 6 options on black screen.
1 Run Graphics Adapter Advanced Diagnostic
2 Run 32 bit Dell Diagnostics
..
5 Exit to DOS
6 Reboot System
I don’t see the Support Menu. If I go to DOS it takes me to the D drive, and when I try to run chkdsk /r, it tells me to run SCANDISK.
Have I missed something to get to the blue support screen?
Thanks,
Ted
@Ted
Are you sure that’s a Windows XP disc? Sounds like a Dell resources CD…
Hi when i click r then get to the command prompt and type chkdsk/r it says it is not recognised plz help me!!!!
I thought all was lost with the blue screen of death with the unmountable boot error. Dell told me it was probably the hard drive but did sent me the discs but because my warranty was over they would have to charge me to try and fix it. My friend did research on the internet and found your solution on line. It worked. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I thought I would have to buy a new laptop but you saved the day. You are brilliant.
So, I truly thought that I was stuck. Then I found your tips!
TI have made it to the recovery console and have typed in chkdsk /r
It only completed 75%. it says the volume appears to contain one or more unrecoveralbe problems.
What should I do now?
Hi,
I don’t get the “welcome to setup” screen that the picture above shows. When I put in an XP CD, it goes directly to a blue screen with list of partitions and unpartitions information asking me to install XP on my C drive. Which ofcourse means, losing all my data.
Pressing R makes no difference….is there any other way I can get to the dos prompt?? I have tried pressing all the other keys! Enter will install XP, D will delete partition and F3 will quit….no other keys work!!
Or is my only resort now to reinstall XP?
HELP??
p.s. I got the CD from a friend since I cudn’t find my original.
@Suki
Are you sure it’s an XP Professional CD?
Ken, I am sure I know that much @ XP Professional! =)
Sorry took me while to respond..everytime I typed a reply, I prssed submit (w/o a name) and I would lose the whole text….happened 4 times!!
I suspect the reason I may not be getting the welcome to setup screen/dos prompt is because the XP CD I am using came from an image file off my friend’s laptop vs. an orig CD….. I was going to try a diff CD to confirm my suspicion, but I haven’t been able to get my hands on one. Perhaps, incompatinility with XP service packs bw my XP and the XP on the CD could also cause this. What do you think abt those ideas?
I just tried seein if I could install windows on a thumb-drive and backup files by loading windows from it….but that doesnt work =) I select the thumbdrive and it asked me to format C drive to proceed..baah! Eithrecase, in order to move on with my life, I am formatting the C and losing all my data right now.
BTW do you know of any ways one can back up the data when something like this happens? Some hard-drive swap I heard about….
Ken,
How r u? after reading so posts over here i thot you would help me fix my hard drive related problems.
Recently, my dell inspiron 700m was attacked by virus, i installed anti-viruses like AVG and Avira and scanned my machine but i guess they could not detect the virus. The laptop was still running fine but at times everything goes black on screen and gave me some memory address related errors, this thing happened many times, so i thot let me format the C: and re-install windows xp. Somehow, i got a CD from my friend and tried to install XP home professional. Initially, it formatted the C: drive where my previous windows XP home was installed. So, here is the sequence:
Issue 1:
- i insert XP Prof. CD in CD-ROM and boot the laptop from CD-ROM only
- it starts copying some hardware related drivers to my machine on C: drive
- then, it tries to start windows and it restarts again.
Issue 2:
- i insert XP Prof. CD in CD-ROM and boot the laptop from CD-ROM only
- it starts copying some hardware related drivers to my machine on C: drive
- then, it tries to start windows and it start coping files from XP prof. CD to my C: drive…but at 78% it restarts machine saying NTLDR missing!
So, this has happened so many times ..I ran the diagnostic test before booting and it says “DST Short Test Fail - Error Code 1000-0146″.
I don’t know how to fix these errors. It looks like its’ not allowing me to install windows, also, i have 40 GB data on my D: drive which is really really important.
I checked so many forums and i knew when I get the above error code it means the HDD is probably corrupted or broken and has to be replaced with a new one. I know, sometimes, this might be because of bad sectors on my drive but how to fix these errors?
Could you please help me fix this errors so that i can install windows successfully and do back up my data first?
Thanks,
Himanshu
Hello Ken, thank you so much for your post!! Its great and I made sure to read all the replys to your suggestions as well.
However, I still have one ITTY BITTY problem… Whenever I use the command promts it will not let me use chkdsk/r or p. It will however use chkdsk. After going through the steps, minus r & p, I succuessfully could start in safe mode. Will not using R or P hender the fix? And once in safe mode… should I close down the computer and restart it successfully or should I just restore to an earlier time.
Thank you so much, I know this post is over a year old but I found it to be the most help!
Thank you again!!!
@Christin
There’s a space between chkdsk and /r or /p
Every other forum just says “get into boot mode’ or some such, but only you gave precise directions about the F2 key. This enabled me to get around this problem. I THANK you very much for your information; I thought my hard drive had crashed for sure!
Ken
Does this fix work for Vista machaines?
My son has a 1501 and the warrenty is out. he called Dell and just like some of the others had mentioned, he was told the HD would need to be replaced.
He does not have any driver or OS disks that came with the machaine. the HD is partioned and the recovery data is in that partion.
his problen is that the laptop will boot up to desktop screen and then after a few seconds the BLUE screen pops up, but flickers, making it unreadable.
it will boot in safe mode just fine with no errors or blue screen, but will not give the option to restore.
and help would be greatly appreciated.
MP
Hi Ken,
I have same issues on my laptop Dell Inspiron 6000, however I do not have the reinstallation CD for XP Home Edition this laptop.
Can I use the reinstalltion CD for Dell Dimension 2400 for XP Home Edition that is with me? Will there be any problem?
Thanks,
Vicky
As other comments have proved, your advice is obviously great and seemed perfect for the problem I have. However, after following all the steps perfectly - using the purple disk, putting in commands etc - I still get the blue screen ‘unmountable volume’ screen. The laptop is a dell inspiron 6400.
I want to be able to thank you too for solving this crisis. Alas, the crisis remains…
Pls help I get the blue screen saying unmountable boot volume but I have no disks or anything war can I do
@Cameron - As per the instructions above, you’ll need to get your hands on a copy of the CD if you’re to access the repair tools.
@SamJ - If you’ve run the steps, try a few other hard disk checks if you can get into windows - schedule a scandisk, defrag etc. Re-run the steps after that.
@Vicky - You may need to get a copy of the XP Professional CD, not the Home edition CD. It shouldn’t matter what system it shipped with.
@Mark - Booting into safe mode, you can’t access the recovery information on the second partition? Have you tried booting with the Vista CD in the drive to see if you get access to similar options? I’m not a Vista user myself (now, primarily OSX), I tend to steer clear of anything Vista related having used the Beta release of the OS when it first surfaced.
@Charlie - You’re more than welcome, hope that helped
Hello Ken
I tried accessing the tools on the recovery partition which gave me the option to restore the laptop to the manufactures settings. It started the process but then stopped and said there was an error, but did not list what the error was. I noticed there is an auto run.ini file. Do you think if I copied the recovery partition to a CD or a portable drive it would work on reboot, if I change the boot settings?
I don’t know much about DELL, I have an HP and during setup for the first time I was required to make recovery disks. My son tells me that he does not remember having that option when he first set up his DELL.
hey i tried to get this pc to work dell. u know the error. i follow directions still wont work any suggestions
hi Ken,
so my dell is also giving me this horrible blue screen at a very very bad time - in b/w backups! I got so excited when I googled the problem n came across your page. Unfortunately, I don’t have the purple cd, but I do have an ultimate boot cd v3.0…I just can’t figure out which tools might be helpful and don’t want to risk erasing my data. any help would be great! thanks!
Hi!! well my problem is that i have no volume icon, i have no problem with the sound it wroks fine but i can control my volume in my desktop i check control planel is fine, i check the taskbar its fine i try everything already but nothing is workin also i try to install the audio again and nothing what can i do!!!!
Ken you are AMAZING!
I am so glad I found this forum…but I too have the “unmountable boot volume error” message and I followed all the steps….I pushed r to get fix the error and get to the recovery console. I says “examining disk configuration” and then gives me this message that doesn’t go away…”"Examining 305243 MB Disk 0 at ID 0 Bus 0 on iaster….” And it then doesn’t take to the prompts…so I can’t go any further. What do I do to get past this and fix this error? Thanks for your help.
I am so happy! In reading your posts, I was able to fix my sons computer with the dreaded blue screen. I couldn’t be happier, I was ready to toss it out!
You are amazing! Thank you so much for saving the day, I have a very happy boy!
:))
Erin
[...] most popular blog posts of 2008, judging by comments and hits on the post overall, was this one - Unmountable Boot Volume (Dell, Fix) - where I outlined in October 2007 some steps that can be used to get around that boot volume blue [...]
Ken -
the dreaded blue screen has appeared on my desktop
i called my pc man who put his own cd in (as i havnt got xp cd) and after 5 minutes he showed me that my “c” drive had zero mega bites - it recognised all the other drives attached but c drive had nothing to show
is complete hope gone to try and get back my data????
Thank you!!! You r a LIVE Saver! I m going to ditch my laptop for mac now!!!!! THANKS!
opps sorry i mean LIFE SAVER!
Majstore ti si CAR!!!
i am from Serbia, and i just fixed my dell thanks to your advice
Maestro you are a KING!!!
Thank you!
Hi ken i have a dell inspiron e 1505 and its showing unmountable boot volume problem with a blue screen. i tried to follow your instructions but when i enter the “chkdsk/r” or “chkdsk/p” the system says : “the command is not recognised ….” can you please tell me what should i do now?
Ken! Thank you so much for the easy instructions. I turned on my laptop last night and this screen popped up randomly..I didn’t even do anything! I followed your instructions and now everything’s fine. I haven’t even lost anything. You’re a life saver!! Thanks a million!!
“John Saadi”,
you should be entering chkdsk /r with a space in between, same with the other.
Ken,
Thank you very much! I had the blue screen of death and looked all over the internet for a solution. Fortunately I had another computer I could use. My Dell Inspiron 1150 looked like it was dead in the water with the unmountable boot volume error. Your suggestions and advice saved the day! No one else told me how to access the dos screen and to change the boot order. Good thing I was able to find my original, still in the package installation cd. Also, when I got to the command list, it too didn’t recoginze the /r, so I just typed “chkdsk” and that worked. It found an error and I proceeded to the boofix command and it successfully overwrote it. I was able to reboot and launch Windows! Many kudos! Guess my next project is to back up everything. (oops, I don’t have it backed up yet?!?!)
Kathy
Still it’s not working. I got a new hard drive. But it would be a great help if I could recover some files from my old hard disc.
I too have had this problem with my Dell Dimension. I had fixed the problem by reinstalling windows about a year ago, it crashed again, I fixed it again. Now I have what seem like 1,000 error OFOO:0244 messages on chkdsk. I could create a new boot sector, AGAIN, and reinstall XP AGAIN, but wonder if it’s even worth it if I’ll go through this again in a month.
Hey ken I have the same problem as everyone else lol the dreaded blue screen and i dnt know what to do. The thing for me is im using an Hp so can the same steps you said b4 wrk for me as well?
Hello Ken,
I have tried all the options and everything went well with chkdsk /r, /p .. but when i typed fixboot i got this msg:
Are you sure you want to create a new bootsector…
[I typed Y and hit enter]
The filesystem on the startup partition is unknown
FIXBOOT is attempting to detect the filesystem type
The bootsector is corrupt
FIXBOOT is checking the filesystem type…
The partition is using the NTFS file system
FIXBOOT is writing a new boot sector
The new bootsector was successfully written
—–
Then I typed ‘exit’ and com restarted. I thought after restart it will be okay but I still have blue screen.
Please be kind enough to explain where the problem might be.
Thank you in advance!
Forgot to mention something… where it says
1: F:\WINDOWS
Which Windows installation would you like to log onto
(To cancel, Press ENTER)
How come its labeled as F if I know it was C ?
Please help!
Many thanks for your help.I have managed to clear the blue screen of death.Unfortunaely it keeps returning..do you know why this happens?
I am still waiting …plaese answer if you can help before I reinstall windows and just lose it all…
well i have the dreaded blue screen with unmountable boot volume and sadly i bought my laptop second hand therefore it doesnt have any boot disks how do i go about fixing it cheaply as im poor as anyone lol
Ken,
I wanted to express my appreciation for the information that you provide. I managed to get the ‘Unmountable Boot Volume’ on my Dell E520 at home and I would have been lost without you. Dell said reinstall Windows XP and so did the computer support where I work. I had too many family photos, videos, etc. just to give up. Anyway, I used your advice as a guide and I fixed my problem.
I learned that I had to be patient while I was fixing the problem. Once I finally got to the ‘recovery console’, I had to reboot and try several times before I got a dos-prompt. I typed chkdsk /r and it just sat there…nothing happened. I left it all night and nothing. The same thing with chkdsk /p. After three days of frustration, I finally tried fixboot c and it worked great, but when I rebooted I got the blue screen again. Then, I tried chkdsk /p and finally it worked. I exited and rebooted and everything is great now.
So, after rebooting and trying the commands over and over I finally had success. If anyone has this problem of nothing happening after typing a command, then the secret I found is to be persistent and patient….keep rebooting and trying again.
Thanks again for all your advice.
You are the man!!! I got the blue screen of death and followed your instructions and was back up in no time. This was on a Dell Precision m65….now, let me go back up the files before i have another scare.
Thanks Again
You Rock! You saved me! Followed your instructions and it worked.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share.
Add me to your long list of admirers. Saved me much time and agony.
Thank you sooooo much!! When I called Dell this morning, they told me that I needed a new hard drive. My life is on that hard drive and with your instructions, it worked!!!
Thanks again!
Erica
I Love u man
man you are a legiond,thought id lost everything mainly my pics..THANK YOU SO MUCH.. WOW WOW WOW
I have a laptop with no floppy disk drive and I don’t have the xp cd. I have another desktop with windows Vista….
If I have to borrow an xp disc from someone then I’m just going to get a new computer.
hey ken, help me on this one here. i bought a neww keyboard from dell right??well when i type with email to my friends there. the cursor goes all the way back to the start . isnt strange , and the keyboard is brand neww.checked out the viruses and found a ? exe2bin in the safe mode .what in the heck is an exe2bin virus there?. doenst look like the conflicker worm there.. thanks ..
This article saved my Dell computer. Thank God for the internet and smart people like you.
Much thanks
Sir, you are fantastic. Both my daughters belovd Dell inspiton 1501 laptops wre U/S and your clear , easy to follow instructions have saved them (and done no damage to my status in the houshold!)
Thanks
Hutch
I can’t thank you enough for fixing my computer. I thought I was going to have to get a new one. I’ve got over 20 gigs of precious memory stored on my computer. And with my dad not home at the moment, it would be nearly impossible to fix this hunk of junk I call a comp. Thank you so much.
Hey Ken, sorry this is going to sound rather stupid but you when you say type in “R”, do i type in R or “R”?
Just going through this at the moment and don’t want to do any mistakes:D
Thankyou so much, you saved my bacon:D Can i ask what you think will have caused this to happen and is there anyway of avoiding it happening again?
THANK YOU!!!!
awesome fix, computer sat on my floor for 5 months while everyone told me to piss off or buy a new computer.
sadfully i did buy a new one but this is a great and easy fix that will really help me.
thank you very much.
Ive done all the above including pulling the hardrive but have not ponied it onto another comp yet.. I dont know whats causing this. I done all of the following: pulled cd ROM tested=ok and played CD in another mach, ran xp home {as it has home} disc, downloaded other drivers, bootdisks, XPservice pac3, dell drivers ect. Nothing comes up, but the screen of death. CD wont start {lights up then stops in this mach} I dont have floppy drive, all with the same results Unmountable boot volume. STOP: 0×000000ED {0×8A649E30, 0xC0000006, 0×00000000 0×00000000} reguardless of my out come, I must say thanx you for all the other people you have helped. Its nice to know decent humans are out there helping others.
Hi Ken…I tried the steps you outlined on my Dell Dimension 2400, but it does not appear to have worked. For both the chkdsk /r and /p steps, the process only made it to 25% before indicating there were problems with the disk and returning me to the C> prompt. I wasn’t sure if this was “normal” or not. I did make it to the “fixboot c:” step and did receive a “success” message. However, when I tried to reboot, it just stalls on the Windows Load screen. Is it possible that DELL was right in my case and the HD does need to be replaced?
Thanks.
I tried and have finished successfully the steps mentioned above but again i am getting the fu… blue picture i dont know why..
Would you be so kind and give me some more suggestions..
Thank you very much.
Yes, I did get this infamous blue screen after installing some new software.And I kept getting the same screen whatever I tried. My last resort was google with “unmountable boot …” and MY FIRST CHOICE was your (this) website. All your instructions worked like a charm!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
And it might make you feel good to realize that with my nearly 82 years of age your help made me still feel I’m not too old yet for all this stuff. Thank you again!
(young man!)
Ken, thanks soooo much for you help.. I thought I lost everything.
JMG
ok so one day my computer was running fine and then it just shut down on me and the blue screen pops up. cant get into it on safe mode. dont have any of the discs that came with it at hand, i can kinda get around computers, but i really need step by step instructions. i have a lot of music and photos on it and i’d rather not have to lose all of it but if necessary then i dont mind. dont have the money to have someone else fix it and the screen pops up saying “unmountable_boot_volume” i have no clue what that means
Have Vista - 2 month old laptop - compaq unmountable_boot_volume error message??? Tried rebooting and following instructions under error message - nothing is working. Just keep getting the same error message. The new compaq does not come with recovery cd - I remember the sales person stating you just go online now to download everything. If my computer wont start windows - how can I go online with it to download anything… Please help - Thanks in advance! Craig
thats why it didn’t work i forgot the “c:” after “fixboot”
I’m sure you are used to hearing this, but you are a genius! Thank you being such a great help, not only to me, but to all the other folks who thought their computers were lost. MMMWAH!!! and thanks again.
does anyone know where i can get the dell re boot cd from cuzz i dont have mines anymore its been misplaced….
Hi Ken or anyone else that can help me!!!!!!!!!!
I have the same problem, but I have the Dell Inspiron 1501 with Windows Vista installed. What do I do to avoid taking it in for repair and a new hard drive?
I tried to follow the same steps as above, but they did not work as they were for the Windows XP disc!!
Please help me out here!!!!!!!!!!! I have my entire life on that laptop! Pics, work, music, etc.!!!!!
Thanks to all who respond! I am grateful!!!!!
Londonne
Ken. I am begging for your help here. I got this error “unmountable boot volume”. I followed your instructions to a tee and still got the same error. I was successful with each step and saw all the choices and messages that you indicated. I have a Dell Inspiron E1705.
I’d really appreciate your help. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know. I ran the diagnostic and the hard drive appears to be fine.
Thanks again!
Alex Poulin
I did all the steps as dictated above and i still keep getting the “gorgeous blue screen”. My Bios has nothing to do with it. *Sigh* guess I just have to reinstall.
me right b4 reinstall: T_T
Me right after when i realize what I lost: //_T (emo)
i have an xp home edition cd.
i booted my laptop from the cd but before it got to the menu where you press ‘r’ it went back to the blue screen!
any suggestions would be greatful!
thanks
Lorna
another success story!!! thanks
Hi Ken! I got the unmounted boot volume error in my Inspiron E1405. I do not have any recovery CD, the way I’d formatted it before is by pressing ctrl+F11 but this doesn’t work now.
Anything I try to do gives me back to the blue screen. what can I do?
Thanks!!!
I’m 10 years old I googled my error code from my blue screen and found your post.
I had to leave off the “/r” and it worked.
Thankfully my dad saved the original disk, you saved my computer.
Thanks
CR
Hey Cristi,
You’re welcome.
@Lidia without the recovery CD it falls out of the steps above.
My computer has 4 partitions - i tried this with c: and it didn’t work; so now working on d: then e:; I also have a ? partition, which has 55MB used - once I’ve tried this on all partitions I will try to get my computer running…fingers crossed!
Didn’t work; guess Dell is it! Darn it!
Ken. I love you. you have saved my life! thank you!
I have tried everything you have said, i even made my cd drive the number 1 to be read on boot up and yet i still get no options to use this cd. WHAT DO I DO?!?!
This info is invaluable.
I tried to help my brother by taking the back off of his Alienware laptop to clean out the cooling fans because they were clogged with dust and causing it to overheat and crash.On reasembling,this very message came up and i was thinking oh sh*t ive screwed it up for him.But on following these instructions its now back to normal and running much cooler!
Thankyou so much,its a life saver.
Great job Ken. This is the most info I have seen anywhere on this topic. I have an inspiron 6000 and ran through the steps below (twice) and still get the same unmountable boot volume error. Anyone have any ideas what to do next?
Ran chkdsk /r
Ran chkdsk /p
ran fixboot c:
ran full diagnostics (received multiple error messages)