unmountable boot volume

[jenk]

HI GUYS!
I GOT THIS PROBLEM. WHEN I START WINDOWS XP,THE LITTLE BLUE BAR STARTS TO CHARGE THEN I GET THIS MESSAGE ERROR:

"A PROBLEM HAS BEEN DETECTED AND WINDOWS HAS BEEN SHUT DOWN TO PREVENT DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER."
UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

iv,e tried booting from the cd but when its reading the cd it stops and i get a prompt command what do i write at the A:> prompt?

I am not getting anything when i type fixboot...but when i type "fdisk" i get options to 1 create partition 2 delete partition 3 select bootable partition 4 re write master boot record ,but whenever i select any of these options it tells me it can not be done in standard mode.
when i try to create a partition it says there is not enough space.
my bios are set to boot from the cd rom also.

this is driving me crazy!!!!

[guns1inger]

you could try fdisk /mbr to re-write the masterboot record.

[Bjs]

And you wonder why fdisk says this ???

You is running xp remmember , the default for an unformatted drive install for xp is ntfs , thats why you is recieving this error .

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Before any of this is done , if your primary ide cable has 2 drives on it , set ide0 to master (the hard drive) , and the other too slave .

If second ide has two drives , you must repeat the process , you cannot leave them on cable select , it dosent work , if it did , performance of the system is degraded due to non optimal setup conditions .

reboot pc and see if it is recognized , if not , continue on here and choose your required options below

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Do search for DELPART , while your at it , grab the updated format.com and fdisk , over at ms site somewhere .

Delpart will show you ntfs patitions , it is these that you need to delete in order to repartition the drive , ie , clean repartitioning .

Go to the manufacturers website of your hard drive and download the tools for installing a new drive into your pc , just read and choose your options when using these tools

There is a maximum limit to fat32 formatted partitions , somewhere near 32gigs , according to manufacturers , so an 80 gig drive will need to be partitioned into 3 .

Ntfs dose not suffer this low limit , but I personally have had no problems in xp with 80 gig fat32 partitions .

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Once delpart has removed ntfs boot info , you choose if format is to be fat32 or ntfs .

If ntfs , use winxp cd , and it will do it automatically for you

If fat32 , use the drive tools from manufacter partition and format the partitions to fat32 , then xp will give you the option to install on fat32 formated partition .

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That last option is the better choice due to most programs and games being designed and intended to run on systems using hard drives formated into fat32 system format

Just dig around the program or game website you are interested and you'll find this information buried somewhere .

Most admit that there should be no problems running there products under ntfs formated partitions , but if there is a problem , you are on your own to fix the problem ....