Unmountable_boot_volume

Greetings!

For the 1st time in my life, I have encountered the Blue Screen of Death...

I am told that the computer cannot load because of an :

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME.

Does anyone know what the hell this crap is all about???

What happened is this :

I began the installation of Jericho's demo and then, BAM!
Nothing.

What I think happened is this :

My computer was already problems.
It mainly consisted of a memory leak. I think.
I say this because of this :

On and off, the bugger would start to lag. Really lag.
I would press CTRL+ALT+DEL.
The screen would tell me that the mem usage is at 100 %.
I think that this is caused because of an incompatible 512 RAM upgrade (Kingston and don't know the other stats...).
To fix this, I only found one option : Reboot.

So, i was installing Jericho's demo from gamespot, i don't even like FPS'S..., the yellow light was going so fast that it didn't blink anymore but nothing was going on on the screen.
Even though i clicked install twice, nothing was going on on the screen.

So, i think that my computer was having a retard moment and i was asking too much for him to handle.
So, beeing the very patient man that i am, i told myself that i didn't have all of my life to spend waiting for a stupid computer to install a 1 g game.
Without hesitation, i did what i always do when my pc is goin' dumbass on me :

I pressed the power button.

I never had any problems before.
It talks about not loading windows to prevent damaging the cpu.
Talking about safe mode and F8.
Don't understand zip about anything it says.
Even talks about the BIOS. NOT touching that.

It has been a week already. Been playin my PS2...

I have a cousin that works in computers.
He's coming to fix it tonight...
We're formatting. Hope it will work.

Does anyone know what could've done this and if formatting will help or will it be dangerous for the Hard Drive?

Thanks.

Your error message means that the boot sector of your hard disk is garbled. That could be because of a physical problem with the drive or because of some other glitch in the system that corrupted the data in it. In other words, "anything, really."

Formatting the drive will never damage it. In fact, there's precious little you can do to physically break a drive that you can't figure out through common sense (as in, don't dunk it in salt water, don't drop it on concrete, don't bend the pins in the connector, don't touch the circuit board on the back when it's running, etc.).

However, going by your description, it sounds like there's a good chance that something in your box is physically busted, in which case a format and re-install won't fix it: you have to figure out what it is and fix it. The problem is that it could be anything and it can be quite a lot of work to figure it out. However, if the problems started after the memory upgrade, that's probably the culprit: remove the offending memory, format, re-install, and see if it works OK. Then put the memory back in, and see if it stopped working. If so, replace the memory.

Thanks.

I'll check that out tonight.

With the Ram upgrade out before the format of course!

*crosses his 21 fingers!!! heheheheh*

boot sectors are also a favorite target of virusi

In my case I think my MB is busted.

Lucky Day said:

boot sectors are also a favorite target of virusi

In my case I think my MB is busted.

Click to expand...

Any particular reason you think that? A computer is a pretty interconnected bunch of stuff; I for one can't think of any way to tell for certain or even with a high likelihood of success which component is busted unless I broke it myself in some completely unambiguous way.

You didn't use the trial of EVE Online, did you ?

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Is this true ?
http://kotaku.com/gaming/lethal-update/eve-online-trinity-update-kills-xp-330805.php

Click to expand...

My system just been hit with BSOD after installed an updates from Microsoft for Vista. Luckily no damage done after restarted it.

Prime Junta said:

Any particular reason you think that? A computer is a pretty interconnected bunch of stuff; I for one can't think of any way to tell for certain or even with a high likelihood of success which component is busted unless I broke it myself in some completely unambiguous way.

Click to expand...

when trying to to add my now readable HD into the first IDE slot I accidentally forced the cable in backwards. I did hear a crack when I forced and only realized what I had done after the machine powered itself off and turning it back on gave me a beep code. After that my SATA drives wouldn't boot. Vista refused to install on them and XP installed but without telling me it was booting off my CD. I spent hours unsuccessfully reinstalling drivers that wouldn't take. I had thought the boot sector might be damaged or virusi'd but I couldn't rule out the *crack* I heard. I ran into similar trouble when the onboard AGP went out on an earlier machine.

I quit when the machine refused to turn on at all. It felt like a good time.

So either I shorted the sytem out by putting the cable in backwards or, more likely I think, the powersupply was done for and sending out *signals*. Its probably why I lost the power to the original IDE drive in the first place.

---

incidently, I don't know wher eI got this link but it was sitting in my bookmarks on my laptops. Read the comments below the article, I think they give better advice than the article itself:

http://jclark.org/weblog/Miscellany/Tech/ubrescue.html

it worked but..........................................

Hello!

So, the format worked but there are still problems......................

1) I have no sound. Did a little troubleshooting.
No mixer device installed.
No sound device installed.

No sound availlable............... I'm so pissed.
Can't play games. No sound makes them crash!


But that's not all!

2) My Nvidia icon that i usually see on the bottom corner of the screen is not there (same thing for the volume icon).
Hence, cannot change graphic settings.........

BUT, that's not all..............

3) When I try connecting to the net, just as my baby connects,


come on you guys, I'll give you one try to guess what happens.













IT REBOOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


*pulls all of the hair off his head*

Can anyone help me?

I'm guessing motherboard or virus. I assume you've tried updating Windows and your drivers. Did any of it stick?

Is Windows still in your CD-ROM drive? If so try booting it without it.

Are all plugs put into the sockets correctly ?

I still remember that PS/2-Mouse that was not plugged in correctly in that NT machine, causing it to constantly rebooting ...

That sounds very much like something is borked in the hardware. You did remove the memory upgrade? If so, and the problems are still there, the only way to go is to find the faulty component through a process of elimination -- strip down your system to the bare minimum, borrow a second motherboard and power supply, and then swap out one component at a time until you diagnose the problem.

This takes time and patience, and many people would find it simpler just to eBay off your old hardware and buy a new box. If you do try it, in my experience the most likely culprits are:

(1) Faulty connection somewhere. Just disassembling everything, then reassembling it, will often make the problem go away.

(2) The power supply. As they age, they sometimes go a bit wobbly, and a wobbly power supply will cause your entire system to go unstable. The only way to test this is to try with another power supply.

(3) Thermal issues. If the machine runs fine with the case open, this is the problem.

(4) Memory issues. If the machine runs fine with only one stick of memory, or with the sticks in different slots, or with different sticks, faulty or incompatible memory is causing the trouble.

(5) A broken motherboard. Mobos are complex and somewhat fragile beasties, and fail in strange ways. The only way to test this is to swap and see if the problem goes away.

Thanks you guys.

I'll check this out this weekend!

I might of mispluged a few things.

I vacuumed the inside of the tower.
Could it have done something?

The fan was so dirt filled it was unbelievable!
Now, it runs smoothly!!

But the rest, well, I won't even talk about it...
No sound, no graphic card icon, reboot, meh!

I'll see what happens.

Certainly. The plastic nozzle of your vacuum cleaner can carry static electricity, which could fry components if you accidentally touch the motherboard. Or you could just have physically knocked something -- an already bad solder or cracked component could have failed because of that.

Either way, the only way to know what's broken is to test the components one by one. Which is a royal PITA.

I guess I have no choice.
I'll go at a cousin of mine (who works in computers) this weekend...
One part at a time... geez...

But it runs so smoothly now! God damn it!

I didn't touch the motherboard with the vacuum cleaner though.

About my missing nvidia graphics icon, well, it was a retard moment from my part...
I just had to reinstall the driver...

But the damned thing still reboots and no sound!

I don't know if the removal of the 512 ram expansion did anything good to the computer. I say this because I chiefly noticed the lag when I was playing games.

But it runs so smoothly now...

Ok. Nuff said.
I'll check the thing out this weekend and I'll keep you guys updated.

if you didn't install the driver from video card... did u install the one for the sound?

gaboru93 said:

if you didn't install the driver from video card... did u install the one for the sound?

Click to expand...

Thanks young padawan jedi!

Very simple suggestion to a very simple problem that I had not thought of.

Now, all drivers are there and everything works fine.

Thanks to all for all the help.