Unmountable Boot Volume

[cb689]

just did a clean reinstall of windows 7 on my laptop... was working good until i shut it off and turned it back on later. Got a blue screen of death with "unmountable boot volume" error and i cant reinstall os or even start it up on safe mode. Can't even get to any of the repair options offered in the boot menu b/c everytime i select anything it goes to "windows is loading files" and gets stuck

 

[not so gray matter]

I use Ultimate Boot CD for problems like this. I'd just check for drive errors and then wipe the entire drive, that is if you can.

Ultimate Boot CD - Overview

 

[Bill2]

"Unmountable boot volume" error means the OS cannot boot from the hdd either because the boot files are corrupter or the hdd is going bad or connector/cable problems. Reformatting the drive should be your last option, before doing that you should do a CHKDSK followed by an MBR fix.

1) Boot from your win7 install dvd, choose startup recovery options, then get into command prompt. If you dont have an install dvd or it isnt able to get you into recovery, download a Win7 recovery disk from Download Windows 7 System Recovery Discs — The NeoSmart Files and use that. Now, perform a scan on the drive letter of your choice by running "chkdsk x:" where x is your drive letter. The manual scan options are:

• /F Fixes errors on the disk.
• /V On FAT/FAT32: Displays the full path and name of every file on the disk. On NTFS: Displays cleanup messages if any.
• /R Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information (implies /F).
• /L:size NTFS only: Changes the log file size to the specified number of kilobytes. If size is not specified, displays current size.
• /X Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary. All opened handles to the volume would then be invalid (implies /F).
• /I NTFS only: Performs a less vigorous check of index entries.
• /C NTFS only: Skips checking of cycles within the folder structure.
• /B NTFS only: Re-evaluates bad clusters on the volume (implies /R)

"CHKDSK x: /F /R" would perform a full scan (including bad sectors) and attempt to fix them.


2) Follow up the CHKDSK with a boot sector fix. At the CMD prompt, enter "Bootrec.exe /FixMBR" (without the quotes), then hit Enter. After it is complete, reboot your computer.