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So I am fixing my mom's friend's computer and when you try to start up it goes to the windows xp startup screen thing and then it goes to the blue screen of death. it says UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME. then when i boot from a windows disc it says "no hard disc found." When i did a disc diagonsity test from one of the start up options it said the hdd failed. I know it is plugged in, i checked both ends of the cable. Im guess that the SATA is junk. Is there anything else i could try before i declare it legally desceased?

thanks,
-Daem

howdy Damian.. you could try this..
The message means your boot sector is toast. Not your hard drive..

You can boot to the XP cd and when you see the Welcome to setup press the letter R
You will get a dos prompt
Then type "chkdsk /p" without the quotes and hit enter
When that is done type "fixboot" and hit enter
"Y" and enter at the prompt
Then type "exit" and hit enter

as soon as i hit "R" on the windows disc menu, it says setup did not find a hard disc...blah blah blah. press F3 to end setup. thanks again

:smiley: Hey Damien,

Have you tried using a Win XP boot floppy disk instead of the CD? Also, have you tried to boot up into Safe Mode? (continually tapping F8 at bootup?)

For the bootdisk go to Bootdisk.com.

Look forward to your reply,

TTFN

LGW

i will try the boot disk tonight when i get home, but i have already tried safe mode. no luck. thank you

Hey there Daemian

When you say you have tried safemode with no luck, could you explain how far it gets. e.g Do you see it trying to load safemode or does it come up with an error straight away.

This could be because you are using a SATA drive and Windows XP might need you to install the SATA drivers seperately before the XP setup.

Did you get a floppy disk with your computer that contains your SATA drivers?

If not then do the following:

• Go to your motherboard support site and download the drivers.
• If you are unsure which driver/site to visit then post the make/model of your motherboard for us.
• Once you have the driver copy it onto a floppy diskette.
• Boot off your Windows XP CD and lookout for the option that says - "Press F6 if you need to install any third-party or RAID drivers."
• Press F6 and you will get to a prompt where it will ask you to insert your floppy disk.
• Once it has installed the drivers it will continue the Windows XP setup, you should be able to try either repair install or a complete reinstall of windows.

Let us know how you get on.

i think u might be right Zimbo. I notice something about installing sata drives one time while using the windows disk. it is not my computer so the probability of me being able to get the disk is low, but i'll se if i can figure out what make/model the mobo is tonigt when i get home. thanks again guys.

and when i try to boot into safe mode i get the same error as when i try to boot in nomral mode. it goes to the windows xp screen thingy then Blue Screen of Death w/ message: "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME"