XP problem, can't get to boot up

[jpk]

Hello, I have a problem with a friends computer. It's a Dell Demension 4300. When the computer starts up, just after the windows loading screen a blue screen comes up that says unmountable_boot_problem If the screen is........
The computer had a virus on it but has since been removed before this problem happened. Swapped HD's as Dell Tech said the HD was bad. I think it is another problem as I installed two pother HD's and got the same result. I know the HD's I installed were good. I suspected that possibly the bios was corrupted by the virus so I DL'ed the updated bios from Dell's web site and installed successfully. Still the same problem. I can boot to a windows 98 boot floppy to dos. Tried to run Fdisk but it would not repartition the drive because it did not have a dos partion to remove. Can someone help with this please!

 

[mechBgon]

Have you tried installing Windows from scratch yet? If you're taking HDD's with Windows installed from another computer, and trying those in the Dell, then the other computer would have to be at least "cousins" with the Dell for that to work (similar motherboard chipsets and suchlike).

So throw in the WinXP CD or Restore CD and try a fresh installation, if you didn't try that already.

 

[jpk]

Tried that with all three drives, the original, and my two replacements. Can't even get that far. Load the Dell restore disk in the optical drive and nothing happens. Can't even get it to boot from the optical when I designate that as the boot drive in the bios. When I use the widows 98 boot disk in the a: drive, I can boot to dos and the programs on the floppy. Since using all three drives results in the same blue stop screen I'm suspecting the problem is elsewhere other than the drives. The C: drive is recognized in the bios as well as the size, etc..