BleepingComputer.com: Vista Laptop Won't Boot. Unmountable_boot_volume

Hello,

I have a customer's computer that won't boot and comes up with the BSOD saying Unmountable_Boot_Volume. The computer specs are as follows:

*Laptop - Acer TravelMate 2480
*Intel Celeron M
*Windows Vista Basic

Of course she does not have a recovery disk. I do have a copy of Vista Ultimate. So my question is: Can I use the recovery console in Ultimate to repair a system running Vista Basic??

I've already started the recovery console with Ultimate and selected repair. In the Recovery Options box it lists no O/S. At the bottom it says "If you do not see your O/S listed, click Load Drivers to load drivers for your hard disks." Now if I click Load Drivers is that going to effectively install Ultimate on this machine over Basic or will it just use the drivers to repair the Vista Basic O/S??

If you need any more info just let me know.

Thanks in advance for any help

Robert

For your BSOD, It couldn't get in the hard drive, so that means it doesn't show up of the OS repair list, so the load drivers button, if you click on it, I don't think it'll work.

Vista won't know what version it is until you enter the product key - so booting from the Ultimate DVD won't automatically convert it to Ultimate. The loading of drivers is for loading the drivers into memory if Vista isn't able to use the default drivers built into the Vista DVD.

According to my searches for this model, it has an 40, 60, or 80 gB IDE hard drive - which Vista should automatically recognize without the need to install drivers (the install driver thing is mostly for SATA/SCSI/RAID hard drives). So it sounds to me like the hard drive may be dead. I'd suggest running a bootable diagnostic test on the hard drive (usually available for free at the hard drive manufacturer's website).

Yea, I was sort of wondering about the hard drive myself. I'll scan the drive and see if that's the problem. I'll post back what I find out.

Thanks for your help.

Robert

Ok, I guess you can close this one out. I canceled the Vista Recovery Console and rebooted the system and it booted right up to the desktop. Go figure. Thanks again

Robert