Unmountable Boot Volume

They may or may not have, but in general, bad sectors in a critical area usually make their presence known RIGHT NOW! Harddrives in laptops lead a hard life in exchange for portability. Some of them can last a long time if treated gently; others can go "belly up" in a few months. I would think that Dell will not help you if the Warranty is expired.

www.newegg.com  and www.zipzoomfly.com  are reliable Hardware merchants that Forum Folks swear by, and not at them. If you have data and files on the ailing drive that you need, I would suggest you back them up at once. There are USB enclosures for the drive available on Ebay and elsewhere, that help with that action.

Mike I would run the error checking application again when you can watch it and see what  it reports at the end. If it patched a bad sector, it moves the files in the affected area to another allocation unit and marks the bad sector so no more info is written on it. BUT if it is a bad sector-even though patched- those usually spread later and you risk having a non bootable drive and a loss of data. I would also back up critical Data by some means:CDRs, CDRWs, USB External HardDrive, Floppies, Zip Disks etc. You should also run Dell's Diagnostics on the drive to see what it reports. Then make the determination as to a new hardrive is indicated.

hi, I also have this same problem unmountable boot volume. however my computer (2650) no longer works. It used to work off and on for a little while, but now longer goes beyond the dell screen. after that it shows No operating system found.

diagnosis showed no problems, and BIOS shows no hard disk. I installed a new hard drive but it still doesn't work. I can't install the operating system because it say's no hard drive found. Please help.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

I rerun the Dell diagnostics program yesterday and it found no error at all (two months ago with the same procedure I got the message: "Error code 0F00:1A44;Msg: Block 4493311uncorrectable data error or media is write protected" and the same message showed up for three other blocks (4562519, 7563775, 7564031)).

So I'm beginning to believe that my HDD is not damaged and the previous messages had another origin. On Hitachi's homepage I read that

 

The messages about blocks mean you had bad sectors, which have apparently been patched and the Data/Files moved; however the damage is still there, and it is not going to get better, only worse. It is your decision of course to not replace the drive, but do not be surprised if the same thing happens in the future. 

I rerun the Dell diagnostics program yesterday and it found no error at all (two months ago with the same procedure I got the message: "Error code 0F00:1A44;Msg: Block 4493311uncorrectable data error or media is write protected" and the same message showed up for three other blocks (4562519, 7563775, 7564031)).

So I'm beginning to believe that my HDD is not damaged and the previous messages had another origin. On Hitachi's homepage I read that they often get HDD's back that are not really damaged and that short power failures during a writing process can produce something that looks like a bad sector

I bought an external HDD that automatically makes backups of my data so I think I can wait until the internal HD relly crashes if that ever happens.

 

OK, I believe you.  Is it possible make an image of the damaged HDD and then load it to the new drive when I use the diagnostics CD to boot? Or should I install Windows XP on the external drive and make it bootable that way?

I  do not like that procedure and therefore have only tried it once without success. If it were my laptop, I would use a USB  drive case for my old drive, and after clean installing and updating Windows on the replacement drive, I would access the old drive using USB, and drag and drop the files and data I needed to the new My Documents folder. There are several folks on the forum who recommend Acronis Truimage for cloning if you still want to try that; perhaps one of them will chime in with advice. ejn63 is one Star contributor that likes this software and recommends it.
If you want a USB case, I bought one of them from this Ebay seller which works fine.

Message Edited by leduke30 on 07-26-2005 10:57 AM

Sounds like a good idea; thanks, Leduke. I just noticed that the same Hitachi Travelstar HDD costs about twice as much when I order it from Dell compared to several online shops...Is there any reason why I should buy it from Dell?

The drives from Dell come installed in a caddy and ready to slide into the machine, as the service manual only covers that manner; however, it is not a problem to remove your older drive fom your present caddy (4 screws from the bottom), remove the IDE Adapter Plug from the 44pin interface, and install it on the new drive, reinstall the drive  in the caddy, then put the drive/caddy assembly  into the laptop. 

Is the laptop and drive still in warranty?If not, get your drive where you will.

Sure, Mike. The only difference is a performance boost from the faster spinners. Don't forget to change the IDE adapter plug from the old drive to the new one's 44 pin standard interface; that is, if your model uses one.