win XP experts, boot.ini issues...plz help?

hello. laptop decided not to play fair anymore. i gave it power and interwebz, it didnt give me GRM!

2007 toshiba satellite. win xp home. 80gb drive. was functioning well. had some issues with firefox, tried a reboot, and it didnt reboot. it gave me the error "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME" in a blue screen of death kind of fashion. safe mode is no help, same screen. 'boot using last know good settings' no help, same screen. i did some searching, and it seems if i had my original windows XP cd, this would be a simple fix. using the cd i should be able to run some kind of 'R' CHKDSK, or something of that nature and it should fix the boot issues, if possible. its also possible my HDD failed and im sunk.

at this point i looked for said XP disc. its gone. so i looked for alternatives. i found a program called 'hirens boot cd'. its questionable legality aside, i think this might work. the issue is, it seems as if its designed for people FAR smarter than me. i have it, i can boot to it on the offending, non-GRM delivering lap-top, but i don't have a CLUE what to do from there. i tried a few things, mostly diagnostic stuff, and i do get reports that my boot.ini file is corrupt. It seems as if i can fix this with hirens boot CD, but i dont know how...

and thats where im at now. i REALLY want to get my pics and stuff off of it...

if ANYONE can help me, in any way, either with the route im using, or another route to fix the boot file, point me to a walkthrough, or would be willing to chat with me over the phone and walk me through it, id REALLY appreciate the help.

thanks in advance, GRM.

(ps, i do have a working PC at home with a CD burner, and the optical drive in the laptop works. im told this is useful info to give people online to help fix PC issues.)

-J0N

also, link to where i found the "hirens boot CD"

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-system/unmountable-boot-volume-blue-screen/e0b42ed1-9191-4d46-ae63-fdccaafc4f9c

-J0N

Hiren is a repair / rescue utility.. if all you really need is pics/docs.

download ubuntu live CD. and use it to copy your stuff to a thumb drive

Edit: I'll make it easier.

http://www.ubcd4win.com/downloads.htm

Download this UBCD, burn it and boot to "Mini XP Mode"

From there you will have Windoz explorer that you are comfortable with and will be able to copy to either USB drive (or Google Drive, Dropbox, etc all very good online free storage.)

Or pull the hard drive, put it in a $5 eBay external drive case, then plug it into the USB port on your other computer.

I can send you an XP disc. One can also be also be acquired through nefarious means. All M$ wants is the money for the license and really don't care about install media floating around. At every computer shop I've worked, we kept a master disc for every OS in use at the time, and we'd make copies from the master because the discs would get destroyed from time to time.

If you have another desktop with the appropriate interface for the hard drive, you could always stick it in the working system and try the chkdsk /r from there.

Wait, satellite, that's a lappy. Do you know if the hard drive is SATA or IDE? If it's SATA, then it will connect with any SATA mobo no problem. If it's IDE, you'll need an adapter.

Derick Freese wrote: I can send you an XP disc. One can also be also be acquired through nefarious means. All M$ wants is the money for the license and really don't care about install media floating around. At every computer shop I've worked, we kept a master disc for every OS in use at the time, and we'd make copies from the master because the discs would get destroyed from time to time. If you have another desktop with the appropriate interface for the hard drive, you could always stick it in the working system and try the chkdsk /r from there.

thats interesting. so, to simplify (backwoods redneck who only got electricity in the 90's...)i know how to hook my HDD from my laptop into my PC using the cable i bought to do just that. im good there. you're saying that by using that method, i can run the boot.ini repair utility from my PC on the laptop HDD? then stick it back in my laptop and give her a go?

if thats the case, i have the most recent version of hiren on my PC, as i was trying to get it onto a CD (failed 2x). i hope thats what you mean, cause that would be cool...i'd like to get my laptop back to the way it was yesterday, working. if i cant have 'working', ill take 'my files' onto my desktop pc as a second option. then ill replace the laptop HDD and see if theres any low buck upgrades, and install my win 7 ultimate...

thanks for the help!!!

-J0N

Theoretically, it should work exactly like that. I'd start off using chkdsk /r from the command prompt inside of Windows first, though.

PM me if you run into any snags.

If you have the drive out of the lappy and hooked up to the desktop pull your pictures and such off first and then monkey with it. Once everything is off you can do anything up to and including reformatting if need be.

In reply to oldopelguy:

good point...

thanks all.

-J0N

Backups are always good to have. Make them while you can, and burn a couple CDs of the stuff you really want to keep and store them in a location separate from the computer. That way if something happens to the location, you still have your data.

Derick Freese wrote: I can send you an XP disc. One can also be also be acquired through nefarious means.

I'll actually second this, it won't cause any licensing issues on your PC if you just use it to run the repair (as in boot repair, if you do a repair install that's a whole different can of worms). Get an .iso image from some scurvy dogs and use it to fix the PC.

However the way this problem popped up suggests to me that your hard drive is failing or you at least have severe filesystem damage.

neither would surprise me. its been hot a hundred times, the HDD is completely full, and its old. and i never turn it off. unless it overheats and shuts itself off. or the battery faults out and kills it. or it freezes and i manually power cycle it.

hmm, might need to just pull the pics and get a new one...

:P

-J0N

Most modern computers shut the drives down when they aren't in use.

I have 2 24/7 boxen at home, and I've never lost a drive in either of them, nor have I lost any drive in any of my 24/7 boxen. My standard drives are WD Caviar Blacks in whatever size I need.

ok, help?

had boot file issues with my only working PC, so i tried to run chkdsk /r, and got this message:

"access denied as you do not have sufficient privileges. you have to run this utility running in elevated mode."

huh? i hate this thing...

-thanks in advance...

-J0N

The working machine is windows 7, right? Run it as an administrator.

ok, ill PM from here. thanks.

-J0N

For some reason, it keeps getting bounced back. I'm going to use one of my burner addresses and post it here for you to email me.

baconofit@gmail.com

sent