Unmountable boot volume error

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Originally Posted by 3fingersalute

So you get this error even booting to a CD? That seems a little odd. What if you try either another drive and/or another XP CD? Seems kind of odd to receive an unmountable boot volume error when booting to removable media.

What if you chuck another drive on the primary ide, move your drive to the slave, and then boot to the cd, running the chkdsk/r on the d: (or whatever drive letter is appropriate for your slave drive), then switch it all back?

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at this point everthing seems odd "been trying to get my new toy to work for about a month".... i dont have another xp cd, but i have a win 2000 cd, didint work either. im a try another cd rom drive.
see what happens.... well time for work, but feel free to post any ideas.

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Originally Posted by jay hooks

at this point everthing seems odd "been trying to get my new toy to work for about a month".... i dont have another xp cd, but i have a win 2000 cd, didint work either. im a try another cd rom drive.
see what happens.... well time for work, but feel free to post any ideas.

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ps. right now im using a sata drive so its not on the ide
{scroll back for specs}

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Originally Posted by gazzak

This is the official Microsoft answer!

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did you try this ?

Have you checked the cables?

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Originally Posted by NooNoo

did you try this ?

Have you checked the cables?

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Thanks Noo, I've been bursting to say that but been flamed for such before so held back.

I had this issue on an older system & it had me tearing my hair out.

In my case using a different CD-ROM drive corrected the issue. the weird thing is that once the OS was installed, I could connect the original CD-ROM drive & both the BIOS & OS detected it & it worked fine. Go figure... *shruggs*

I would try a different CD-ROM drive with a different IDE cable. Try a regular CD-ROM, not a DVD-RW.

As to the M$ KB article, I don't think much, if any applies to you as you are using a SATA drive & cable. It does point to an issue with the IDE controller\cable\drive, hence my advice regarding the CD-ROM as it's the only device on the standard IDE controller.

Let us know how you do.

~Dave

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Originally Posted by TangleWeb

I had this issue on an older system & it had me tearing my hair out.

In my case using a different CD-ROM drive corrected the issue. the weird thing is that once the OS was installed, I could connect the original CD-ROM drive & both the BIOS & OS detected it & it worked fine. Go figure... *shruggs*

I would try a different CD-ROM drive with a different IDE cable. Try a regular CD-ROM, not a DVD-RW.

As to the M$ KB article, I don't think much, if any applies to you as you are using a SATA drive & cable. It does point to an issue with the IDE controller\cable\drive, hence my advice regarding the CD-ROM as it's the only device on the standard IDE controller.

Let us know how you do.

~Dave

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you would not ****inggggggggggg believe it! that was exactlyyyy my problem... i was using a dvd rw drive and i switched to a cd rom drive and guesssssss what guysssssss we have lift off... thanks to every body for helping me out you guys are ****ingggggg cool in my book!!!!!!!

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Originally Posted by jay hooks

you would not ****inggggggggggg believe it! that was exactlyyyy my problem... i was using a dvd rw drive and i switched to a cd rom drive and guesssssss what guysssssss we have lift off... thanks to every body for helping me out you guys are ****ingggggg cool in my book!!!!!!!

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I thought that might be it ;)

I'm glad you got it resolved.

By the way, it's not ALL DVD-RW drives that cause the problem, just particular drives in specific systems. This doesn't mean never perform a clean install of XP with a DVD-ROM installed.

~Dave

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Originally Posted by TangleWeb

I thought that might be it ;)

I'm glad you got it resolved.

By the way, it's not ALL DVD-RW drives that cause the problem, just particular drives in specific systems. This doesn't mean never perform a clean install of XP with a DVD-ROM installed.

~Dave

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i agree, just going to be more caution in the fulture. "dont want to waste 3 1/2 weeks of precious computer time LOL again. thanks again man.

So just to clarify then...the drive gets automatically detected as a DVD-RW, and if it doesn't work then you need to manually change it to CDROM right? I ask this cause I usually just leave everything on auto.

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Originally Posted by jay hooks

i agree, just going to be more caution in the fulture. "dont want to waste 3 1/2 weeks of precious computer time LOL again. thanks again man.

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My pleasure. Glad I could help.

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Originally Posted by InTheWayBoy

So just to clarify then...the drive gets automatically detected as a DVD-RW, and if it doesn't work then you need to manually change it to CDROM right? I ask this cause I usually just leave everything on auto.

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No, that’s not correct; it was the drive itself, not how it was “set” or configured. What jay hooks did was physically disconnect the DVD-RW drive from the system & connect a different drive entirely to install Windows XP. I do not know what it is about certain drives that Windows doesn’t like when installing from CD-ROM, in my case it was an older CD-ROM drive that it didn’t like. The thing to take from this is that if you get an “Unmountable boot volume error” installing 2000 or XP, think of swapping out the optical drive as an early part of the troubleshooting process. In most cases, you only have to use a different optical drive to install Windows, then you can power off & install the drive that was the problem & have it work just fine.

~Dave

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Originally Posted by TangleWeb

My pleasure. Glad I could help.

No, that’s not correct; it was the drive itself, not how it was “set” or configured. What jay hooks did was physically disconnect the DVD-RW drive from the system & connect a different drive entirely to install Windows XP. I do not know what it is about certain drives that Windows doesn’t like when installing from CD-ROM, in my case it was an older CD-ROM drive that it didn’t like. The thing to take from this is that if you get an “Unmountable boot volume error” installing 2000 or XP, think of swapping out the optical drive as an early part of the troubleshooting process. In most cases, you only have to use a different optical drive to install Windows, then you can power off & install the drive that was the problem & have it work just fine.

~Dave

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exactly. that was the problem, but in my case the dvd rw drive was alot newer then the muchhhh older cdrom drive i used to install windows. not sure why it was so picky, but atleast we have a conclusion to learn from. im assuming that since windows likes to "control" everything, it didint find the proper driver for this particular drive, hence the unmountable boot volume error..... hummmmmm sounds good??? lol

I see now...was just misreading it. Thanx for clarifying!

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Originally Posted by InTheWayBoy

I see now...was just misreading it. Thanx for clarifying!

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cool. well. thanks again to all for your ideas. if anybody needs help with pc issues, feel free to drop a email. peace

Sorry for bumping this post, but I'd like to thank TangleWeb for his solution. I had the exact same problem with my system, and I have been out of commission for a week. His suggestion worked perfectly, and my computer is running great.

Thanks, Britt

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Originally Posted by britt

Sorry for bumping this post, but I'd like to thank TangleWeb for his solution. I had the exact same problem with my system, and I have been out of commission for a week. His suggestion worked perfectly, and my computer is running great.

Thanks, Britt

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You are very welcome Britt, I’m glad the post helped out. No need to apologize, searching old threads has helped me many-a-time. This particular issue is not extremely common, but does occur often enough that having the thread at the top of the page every so often may help other users.

I have seen this issue come up on another tech forum as well.

~Dave