Can't fix this unmountable boot volume problem in Windows XP

[robertsmcn]

First, let me apologize for this long post but I'm experiencing a frustrating problem with a recent PC build. Two weekends ago I built a new rig for a friend using the following relative components:

AMD 64 3200+
MSI K8T NEO -FIS2R motherboard
160GB Seagate SATA hard drive
Windows XP Pro

When we booted up for the first time, we went to BIOS, changed the boot order to read the CD-ROM drive first, put the Windows XP CD into the CD-ROM drive, saved and restarted.

Windows XP Setup started loading its files and after a few minutes we started receiving a message stating Setup could not detect a hard drive. We surfed the web and found the troubleshooting tips telling us to press F6 when prompted to do so.

We restarted the Setup process, hit F6 when prompted to and then put the driver floppy into the floppy drive and pressed S. This is the floppy that came with the MSI motherboard that had the SATA drivers on it.

This seemed to solve the "couldn't find hard drive" issue since the floppy drive downloaded the drivers and Setup continued without any further hitches. We were then prompted to format the hard drive and then to partition it. I did one large partition in NTFS.

After this, Windows XP successfully loaded itself onto the hard drive and all went well. I did some minor tweaking in BIOS and then loaded several games onto the hard drive. My friend said all was going great for about two days when he booted up the third morning and got the following blue screen message:

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error
screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears
again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is
properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask
your hardware or software manufacturer for any windows
updates you might need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly
installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory
options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to
use safemode to remove or disable components, restart
your computer, press F8 to select advanced startup
options, and then select safemode.

Technical Information:

***STOP:0x000000ed (0x85e2f860,0xc0000032,0x00000000, 0x00000000)

Now, this seems to be a well-documented Windows XP problem as there are some Microsoft articles published on the issue and a Google search yielded many pages with similar results and advice. This link seems to be Microsoft?s main solution to the problem:

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...kb;en-us;297185

In reading that article, I'm almost certain that my friend's problem is the damaged file system and not the UDMA controller issue.

Now, my friend tells me that he tried following the six steps from the above link to address the damaged file system problem, but that when he gets to Step 2 and presses R, he now gets a message stating that "Setup did not find any hard drives installed in your computer" and that his only options at this screen are to either exit or restart the computer.

This is where we're at now and needless to say we are at a loss. It's as though we're getting that first ?hard disk not recognized? message all over again. Does anyone have any suggestions or advice for this new problem? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Also, am I correct in believing that the hard drive is good if I initially was able to successfully install Windows XP and several games that ran fine for a few days?

 

[Basie]

Hopefully the hard drive is using a 80 wire ribbon cable and not a 40 wire.

 

[Smilin]

When you boot to your CD be sure you are providing the mass storage device driver diskette (F6) every time. It's needed for recovery console as well as setup.


Run the chkdsk /r. It might take a little while on that drive.



I wish everyone posted the problem so well.

 

[robertsmcn]

Basie - I'm using the thin Sata cable that came with the MSI motherboard. That is the only cable that will fit into the back of the hard drive. I'm farily certain the cable is fine.

Smilin - Just so I understand, are you saying that in addition to having the Windows XP CD in the CD drive that I should also have a floppy in the A: drive? Which disk is that? The mobo came with two floppys with separate drivers. I only loaded one of them when installing XP as noted above when I got the F6 prompt.

I will be troubleshooting this problem tomorrow night with my friend. One of the things I'm going to try is running DiskWizard Startup Edition from a bootable floppy. This is Seagate's driver software used in connection with installing new hard drives. Admittedly, I did not load this during or after the Windows XP installation so I'm wondering if this could be part of the problem. I had to create the floppys from Seagate's website - they did not come with the hard drive itself. Is this the floppy I should have in the A: drive when booting up?

 

[NogginBoink]

Use the MS process and press F6 and give it the SATA controller driver, as smilin says.

 

[Basie]

Using a SATA drive you wouldnt really need to check for a 80 wire ribbon cable. Sorry, I missed that at
the top of your Post. That only applies to IDE Drives.

 

[robertsmcn]

That's one less thing to worry about. The mobo came with two sata cables. Just to be sure it's not a bad cable or connection, the first thing I'm going to do when I troubleshoot is to change the cables.

 

[Smilin]

There has to be a driver to allow the OS to read the disk. This counts for recovery console and your installation. That newer controller doesn't have a driver built in to the OS so yes, you'll need to hit F6 any time you start with your CD.

I would really recommend against using any "disk utilities" from the manufacturer at this point.

See if you can run a chkdsk from recovery console after providing the F6 driver. Let me know if that works.

 

[robertsmcn]

We tried many things yesterday.

First, I replaced the SATA cable with another and got the same results, so as I suspected, the SATA cable was fine.

Then we ran the SeaTools diagnostic. There were four different tests we had the choice of running and we did all four and passed, so it appears that the hard disk is fine.

We then booted from the Windows XP CD and pressed F6 and installed the SATA drivers from the floppy disk. Afterwords I pressed R and started running chkdsk. I don't know if this is normal, but it was up to like 72% and then it went back down to 50% and then took a very long time to get to around 63% when I lost patience and decided to do a clean install of Windows.

So, we did that but this time during the installation process, we got the following Hardware Installation (!) message:

?The software you are installing for this hardware: WinXP Promise SATA378? IDE Controller has not passed Windows Logo Testing to verify its compatibility with Windows XP.

Continuing your installation of this software may impair or destabilize the correct operation of your system either immediately or in the future. Microsoft strongly recommends that you stop this installation now and contact the hardware vendor or software that has passed Windows Logo Testing.

Do you want to continue installing the software for this hardware? Yes or No"

We pressed yes and continued with the installation with Windows XP.

But, the worst part is that after XP finished installing, the New Hardware Detected bubble popped up three separate times with Device Installer Error messages, telling us that "Windows could not load the installer for diskdrive, contact your hardware vendor for assistance." We got the same message for the CD-Rom and then the battery. And now, the CD-Rom doesn't appear when we go to My Computer. It shows a C: drive for the hard disk and an A: drive for the floppy, but there's no D: drive or any other drive indicating that the CD-Rom is even present. What's going on?? This is worse than the Unmountable Boot Volume message. We never had any of these problems with the first Windows installation.