Post by Mercator on Jul 26, 2004 12:33:46 GMT
I'm a computer technician in RL and I usually charge $60 an hour for this help, but since your pic is of Sweet Tooth, I'll do this one for free. 
That error is usally do to a failing hard drive or a major driver screw up. Usually, when we get client PCs with that oh-so-generic blue screen error message, we end up getting them a new HD, since the HD is going out. But sometimes, it's just that driver collision and a reformat sometimes helps. Since your restore disks are AWOL, try these first:
1) Pull the onboard battery out of the motherboard. The battery usually looks like a huge watch battery. Power down the machine and yank the battery out. Wait a minute hten snap it back in and boot up the machine. What this does is reset your BIOS, which throws everything back to default and could be a possible solution. If that doesn't work:
2) Check your HD manufacturer. If its Maxtor or Western Digital (two of the biggest OEM's for HDs) then download their diagnostic program from their respective websites. The programs are bootable floppies that scan the HD for errors. Most likely, this is the problem. The programs will tell you if there are problems and try to fix them. However, 50% of the time, they can't.
Sorry for the bad news, but if there is a physical problem with the HD, there isn't much you can do but garbage it and get another. However, if that happens, before garbaging it, slave the HD to your new one and you might be able to pull the data off. Sometimes, those UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME errors are telling you that it just can't boot up, but all your data is still safely stored away.
That error is usally do to a failing hard drive or a major driver screw up. Usually, when we get client PCs with that oh-so-generic blue screen error message, we end up getting them a new HD, since the HD is going out. But sometimes, it's just that driver collision and a reformat sometimes helps. Since your restore disks are AWOL, try these first:
1) Pull the onboard battery out of the motherboard. The battery usually looks like a huge watch battery. Power down the machine and yank the battery out. Wait a minute hten snap it back in and boot up the machine. What this does is reset your BIOS, which throws everything back to default and could be a possible solution. If that doesn't work:
2) Check your HD manufacturer. If its Maxtor or Western Digital (two of the biggest OEM's for HDs) then download their diagnostic program from their respective websites. The programs are bootable floppies that scan the HD for errors. Most likely, this is the problem. The programs will tell you if there are problems and try to fix them. However, 50% of the time, they can't.
Sorry for the bad news, but if there is a physical problem with the HD, there isn't much you can do but garbage it and get another. However, if that happens, before garbaging it, slave the HD to your new one and you might be able to pull the data off. Sometimes, those UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME errors are telling you that it just can't boot up, but all your data is still safely stored away.
. I reloaded the operating system 4 times 
before discovering on the web that it was a combination problem between the VIA drivers, the BIOS, and the ATI Radeon card. 
