Unmountable Boot Volume

AnneL

SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God
Joined
Jul 11, 2001
Posts
15,946
Location
Wautoma, WI USA
No, this has nothing to do with not being able to mount a volume on boots; it's the message I get when I try to start the piece of junk Gateway computer we have at the house. (Hint: it's original operating system was Windows ME and it arrived with the cd burner disconnected. It's NEVER worked right.) Now when I try to start it, it tells me that Windows can't start properly, offers me a menu of modes to start in, all of which lead to a message that says it has detected an Unmountable_Boot_Volume. When it is trying to start, it makes a grinding noise! :eek: So, has the hard drive toasted for the second time on this machine? If so, anyway I can recover a folder of files I stupidly didn't backup on to a disk? (And I know better too! :rolleyes: ) Is there a way to transfer it directly from the hard drive to another computer. We have a laptop we could hook it to...

By the way, it was currently running on XP, but if we take it back to a Gateway outlet to get it fixed they will install ME again because that is what it came with. :( Worst operating system ever. :mad:
 
Hi Anne,

Windows ME was an embarassment for MS.

Let me ask a stupid question: Is there anything currently IN the cd drive?(CD) It may be attempting to boot from the CD. Is it possible the grinding noise is from the CD drive?

The fact that you're GETTING the boot menu (from the hard drive) is somewhat of an encouraging sign. If the CD drive is empty, we can look at some other options to get your stuff off the computer.

Mike
 
The hard drove can be taken out of the Gateway and placed in another computer as a "Slave" drive. (don't forget to change the pins in back of the unit to I.D. the drive as the slave).

Copy the lost files into the good computer and the data is saved.
 
Thanks guys! I've checked the cd drives but they are empty. However, this computer has for months randomly been attempting to access the cd burner, causing the computer to freeze up. I even uninstalled the software for it to see if it would help. It did, but not much. Also, I did shut it down by pressing the button instead of normal shut down. I had just booted it up and it didn't boot correctly. I had no mouse control and I don't know any way to get it other than turning the machine off. This machine has a bad on/off switch anyway. When shutting down you have to wait till it closes then hold the button in. It doesn't recognize the "shut off" command, it treats everything as a "restart". I'll check out the links and see if there is anything to help there. The copy of XP on there isn't "official". We got fed up with ME and just installed the XP that came with another of our computers on it to get it working.
 
Yea, it sounds like it has a few problems. You can still get the data off though. The Gateway link above might actually fix the initial problem.

The network settings can sometimes cause a problem with shutting down. Often erasing and re-adding them fixes it.
 
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