PC not starting since power cut.

Frank Drebin

Please help....

The other night we had a series of power cuts in the area and at the time my PC was on. Since then Upon restart it presents a blue error screen saying Unmountable_Boot_Drive.
Couldn't boot into safe mode or any other configuration.
Some people say use the 'recovery console' but not sure how to.

Running windows XP pro.

Any ideas?

skywalker_208

Maybe a power spike when the power was turned back on? Sounds like something is fried....

aidan_walsh

Its possible that the sudden cut of power may have messed up data if it was writing to the drive at the time. Try inserting your Windows CD, going to the recovery prompt and run the chkdsk program to start.

KdjaCL

MBR is buggered rewrite it in Fdisk (dangerous) but more than likely a full format is on offer.

Google "rewrite master boot record in fdisk" for exact instructions, its easy enough.

kdjac

aidan_walsh

KdjaC wrote:

MBR is buggered rewrite it in Fdisk (dangerous) but more than likely a full format is on offer.

Google "rewrite master boot record in fdisk" for exact instructions, its easy enough.

kdjac

I thought I read somewhere that chkdsk can repair the MFT if its found to be corrupted? And you'd have the benefit of checking your other files as well.

KdjaCL

MFT and MBR are differnet afaik the MBR can only be edited outside windows , its contains the boot record the Mobo needs to see (ntloader kinda) to boot from it hence unmountable/bootbale error.


kdjac

slade_x

Frank Drebin wrote:

Please help....

The other night we had a series of power cuts in the area and at the time my PC was on. Since then Upon restart it presents a blue error screen saying Unmountable_Boot_Drive.
Couldn't boot into safe mode or any other configuration.
Some people say use the 'recovery console' but not sure how to.

Running windows XP pro.

Any ideas?

If you enter the recovery console from the windows setup disk and type

chkdsk /p it will repair the file system error 90% of the time for you

aidan_walsh

KdjaC wrote:

MFT and MBR are differnet afaik the MBR can only be edited outside windows , its contains the boot record the Mobo needs to see (ntloader kinda) to boot from it hence unmountable/bootbale error.


kdjac

Ah, it is the MFT, right you are. My mistake.

Frank Drebin

Thanks for the advice lads...I'm at work now but will put a bit of this advice to the test this afternoon. Let you know how I get on.......

muckwarrior

slade_x wrote:

If you enter the recovery console from the windows setup disk and type

chkdsk /p it will repair the file system error 90% of the time for you

Yep, defo do this first. Exact same thing happened me and this worked.
To get into the recovery console you'll need to set your bios to boot from cd first. Put in you xp cd and it'll ask whether you want to install windows or run recovery console. If the chkdsk doesn't work try fixboot (I think its fixboot, use help command to get a full list of commands/switches available).

stevenmu

muckwarrior wrote:

If the chkdsk doesn't work try fixboot (I think its fixboot, use help command to get a full list of commands/switches available).

Also try fixmbr

KdjaCL

Its fixmbr in pure bos/fdisk , didnt know recovery console could edit the mrb.

Learn somfin new everyday

kdjac

Frank Drebin

muckwarrior wrote:

Yep, defo do this first. Exact same thing happened me and this worked.
To get into the recovery console you'll need to set your bios to boot from cd first. Put in you xp cd and it'll ask whether you want to install windows or run recovery console. If the chkdsk doesn't work try fixboot (I think its fixboot, use help command to get a full list of commands/switches available).

Right.... Nothing seems to work for me.. I can get into my bios but have no idea how to set it to boot from cd first.

CyberGhost

your hard drive is dead, for sure, sorry!

a similar thing happened to my hard drive(it wasn't a power spike but it just died for some reason) and when I tried to boot up it said the same thing, unmountable...., download hiren's boot cd http://www.9down.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2979, boot up with it, do hard drive diagnostics test, pretty sure it will give you Write or Read error(usually #113) answer

CyberGhost

Frank Drebin wrote:

Right.... Nothing seems to work for me.. I can get into my bios but have no idea how to set it to boot from cd first.

erm... search in bios, it should be written something like this: First Boot Device: HDD or CDROM, use page up, page down buttons to change it from HDD to CDROM.

Frank Drebin

Thanks again for all the advice lads but the hard drive is cooked...........

JackKelly

Crap. That sucks. You should get a surge protector. Word is they protect the pc in these type of situation.

Sparky

yea it sucks alright, my laptop HDD got fried aswell, it would'nt show up in the bios on the laptop and i found out that the drive was'nt spinning so it was dead altogether.

Drapper

where can I get a surge protector lads !!

)paranoid(

Sparky

argos or Maplins, there are other places aswell, Belkin seem to do good ones, ive seen them a few times on QVC, and they have damage insurance for damaged stuff, but im not sure if it applies over here.

Sparky

heres a linky to one of there products
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=&Section_Id=200910&pcount=&Product_Id=135055&Section.Section_Path=%2FRoot%2FPowerProtection%2FSurgeProtection%2FSurgeMaster%2FMaximumSeries%2F