unmountable boot disk

[p01s0n_p1e]

ok ok
my computer has had most things fuxxed over lately- crushed core, loss of colour filters on video card, and now it seems either windows xp is blowing monkey ass for me, or b) my hdd is blowing monkey ass.
what happens is when i boot, it half loads xp (black screen, xp logo, moving blue bar) then it suddenly blue screens saying "UNMOUNTABLE BOOT DISK" in bsod font, with all the other bsod bs (try this and this and this this and this)

so far ive tried a differant ide cable and a differant ide channel.
i havent tried resetting the bios, or trying my 98se hdd.

should probably try those now, but ill wait for some ideas from you all-knowing nerd human- encyclopedia's
:D

[whetu]

ok.. here are your options

1) give up on computers altogether
2) when winxp starts up, press F8 and voila, you will be greeted with a menu that lets you do any number of different boots.. including this magical thing called "system restore" assuming you were smart and left it enabled
3) reinstall

[p01s0n_p1e]

righto
system restore..wtf is that (assume i didnt check, which i didnt)
reinstall, my friend *ahaem* has my xp disk at the mo, but is it possible to boot off the xp disk?
last time i tried it didnt do anything, by boot i mean the install.

cheers whetu, at least you can get some good advice without any crap first up :D on these forums

[whetu]

system restore takes a snapshot of your pc's configuration

if anything stuffs up, you start the system restore wizard and with a few clicks your computer is set back to how it was at the last "snapshot"

the question is, when was the last snapshot on your pc taken?

[swiftynz]

i dont think system restore will help in this case, it sounds more lower level. i may be underestimating XP's system restore though... i wonder why that is?? *cough*winme*cough*:D

it is possible to boot off the xp cd, and you can even run a nice little utility called the repair console. i don't think that will help you though. if you're sure that the partitions are fine and all the data's intact and system restore fails, boot off the xp cd and do a repair (not the repair console repair, the real reinstall repair). this saves all your settings and programs and then reinstalls xp over the top of itself. you lose any hotfixes/updates done to the OS but at least it gets ya going again and you dont have to reinstall everything! ;)

[p01s0n_p1e]

cheers again
ill try reinstalling xp, that clean-install-over-the-top is a trick i used to use with 98 se..
i just told my mate i had his UT cd ransom, so im sure to get that xp cd back :p

[Antimatter]

Can you give a better description of the error and your hardware?
(Preferably number of HDDs, number of fans, where they're placed, CPU, PSU manufacturer and type, mobo make and manufacturer, video card make and manufacturer, any overclocking...etc)

[DiSCLAiMER]

We had a smilar problem happen to another machine at our work, and were able to fix it without reinstalling the operating system, I just can't remember what we did (although we did ask someone else for help). Try checking ms's support base, and if I can remember I'll post back here. Even if you've reinstalled, it could be useful for future reference.

I think one of the things that lead to it is a volume that is not cleanly unmounted on shutdown, and the artcile I think blammed how IDE controllers work with write-cache enabled, and that it could be the cause of the problem. Was the system cleanly shutdown before you got the error? The article from memory also listed other possible causes from memory.

[DiSCLAiMER]

Okay, found this, it lists two possible problems and what to check.... It isn't the article I was looking for thou :( Man its hard somtimes to find the same thing a second time on MS's site.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q297185

[p01s0n_p1e]

thanks disclaimer
once i get this damn history assignment done ill try those methods.