BleepingComputer.com: Vista BSOD Unmountable Boot Volume and KSOD with white cursor

Hello,

I have a Vaio VGN-FZ485U I purchased 4 years ago and it has received heavy use, notably playing movies/music and WoW. The hdd has been giving me issues recently but each time I was able to access Vaios recovery parition and repair the errors/perform a factory install; this time I cannot. I have Vista 32-bit with SP2 installed, and hadn't installed any new software or drivers recently.

Booting normally either a) makes the laptop hang at the load screen before a BSOD about unmountable_boot_volume appears (with automatic restart disabled), or load to a black screen with a white cursor that is moveable. Booting using the safe mode variants and advanced options gives the same result. Attempting to load the Vaio recovery partition only gives the KSOD with the white cursor.

I tried booting from the Vista Recovery CD as recommended to fix an unmountable_boot_volume error but I only get as far the KSOD with the white cursor. The CD was burned correctly as I tested it in another computer and it loads properly.

Pressing shift or trying to access the task manager during the KSOD doesn't do anything.

I checked the BIOS and the hdd is listed as IDE, though there is no option to switch between IDE and SATA anyway.

I was able to boot from an Ubuntu LiveCD and access my hard drive following http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/, so wouldn't this mean the hdd is still working if I can still access it?

I am willing to try installing Ubuntu but wanted to make sure my Vista and Vaio partitions were beyond help; Ubuntu doesn't provide a dual boot install option (for whatever reason) and the remaining install options all remove any existing partitions. I have never used a Linux based OS so if I can repair Vista or at least access the Vaio partition to do a fresh install that would be great.

The hdd is going south I can't deny, but I'm just trying to get it working again for as long as I can.

Thank you for any help!!

Booting to the Ubuntu live CD does nothing to the hard drive. Sometimes you can still access your files and copy them somewhere else from a hard drive that is going out. It may be that the hard drive is able to be used as a slave, but not capable of booting an operating system.