The Blue Screen of Death

My Favorite Windows Error: Unmountable Boot Volume

by Chris B.

Many people have at some point or another seen the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death” error in Windows. There’s nothing worse than sitting down to use your computer for the day only to be face-to-face with a fatal Windows error. One of my favorites is the “Unmountable Boot Volume” error.

This error typically occurs when you first try to boot your computer and Windows detects a problem with your hard drive. Many computer shops will tell you that this error has to do with corruption on your hard drive. The resolution for this problem is to format and reinstall your Windows, causing loss of all your documents, pictures, programs, and personal information.

However, in most cases, this is not true. The reason this is my “favorite” windows error is because many people, repair technicians included, are not aware of a very simple fix for this that will repair the issue rather than doing a “destructive repair” (meaning all of the data on the computer is wiped out and Windows is reinstalled). In this blog, we will go over the necessary steps to resolve this and keep all of your valuable information.

The first step would be to insert your Windows installation CD into the drive and restart your computer. You will see the following screen at startup:

Press ENTER; to start the boot process off of your installation CD. After Windows copies a few files, you will be brought to the installation menu.

Press R here for the Recovery Console, where we will be able to enter the necessary commands to resolve this issue.

Eventually, you will be brought to this screen to select which installation of Windows you wish to repair. Choose the 1^st (and usually only) option to “connect” to your existing version of Windows.

If you have an Administrator password setup, you will be prompted for it here. If you have never setup a password, you can usually just press <ENTER> to start the Recovery Console.

Once in the Recovery Console, you may notice it’s strikingly similar to old DOS based command prompt. From here, there are only three simple commands to left to execute to fix your Windows startup.

At the prompt, type “fixmbr” and press ENTER

As shown to the right, you will get a caution message and a warning that doing this may cause damage to your hard drive. What fixmbr is going to do is rewrite your Master Boot Record, the very first section of the hard drive, so that it will boot the version of Windows that we selected above. Press y to confirm this is what you wish to do and you will be brought back to a prompt.

The next step is to type “fixboot” and press;ENTER

Again, you will be prompted with a confirmation to do this. What fixboot is doing in this case is rewriting the Primary Boot Record, and the Windows Boot Manager (NTLDR) so that Windows can successfully boot. Press y again and you will receive a message saying that the new bootsector was written successfully.

The third and final step will take the longest. Now that we have rewritten the boot record, we must now do a check on all the files on your computer to ensure there’s been no damage or corruption to any of the files.

To do this, type “chkdsk /r” and press ENTER

Here is what you should see:

At this point the Recovery Console is checking all of your files and making sure everything is in order. If for any reason it finds an error, it will make attempts to correct the issue. This process can take up to around 2 hours to complete, but most scans are finished within 45-60 minutes.

After this is finished, type “exit” and you will be prompted to restart your computer. Take out your Windows Installation CD and restart the computer.

Congratulations! You have just repaired your Windows Boot Manager and saved all of your data!