I have a laptop and a Desktop. On the desktop computer XP was installed. after about a month or two I keep getting a message along with a Blue Screen Of Death saying "Unmountable boot volume" and it won't boot windows

Therefore I do a clean install of windows. This error has gotten more frequent, and I've given up on windows for the time being on that machine.

Because it keeps happening is it a hardware problem?

It happened after I installed a 2nd Hard Drive.

Thanks

This could be a possible hard drive failure in progress. As a saftey step, back up your data ASAP. A simple google search provides these results...

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2605/fixing...ot_volume_error
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555302
http://www.techtips4u.com/kb/sw/SW00014.htm

Good luck! Post if you have trouble with any of these.

Did you make the new hard drive a slave to the first, or did you install it as a secondary drive? Whichever method you used, do the other method. Your PC seems to be getting confused and trying to boot the new drive. Possibly a resource conflict, so it's easiest to change it.
I do remember something like this happening to me years ago, and I used the other method to fix it. If this doesn't work, then it may be true that your primary is about to crash. If you have Windows on disk with the key to install it, then you can install your new drive as the master or primary and install windows on it. Enslave your current master to it and transfer critical files to it. You can then reverse the two drives if you like, but you'll have peace of mind that if you lose your primary, you can switch themm again.
If you decide to make both drives bootable, remember to change the jumper pin on the drives to be slave or master or seconsary, etc. depending on your drive and system configuration. In fact, you might check to see first that you have them jumped correctly now. This could be the source of the problem.

The thing that confuses me is that Linux boots fine...

Does it use a different way to ID hardware?

If you're using a Linux live CD then it will boot because it doesn't touch your hard drive.
If you are booting Linux from the hard drive then it may work because Linux hasn't stored its boot files at the beginning of the hard drive, so its files may not be damaged. Linux is also often much more tolerant of slightly damaged hardware.

rvalkass is right .. Linux handles errors better than any Windows machine.

Btw.. Did you format your drive properly ? and Are there partitions on your new drive ?

Bcoz from What I can think of , it could also be a partition table (MBR) problem

Just boot from XP CD , select R to repair and run FIXMBR.

You can try this, since it will just recreate the MBR for the drive.

This post has been edited by bluedragon: May 30 2008, 07:33 PM

I've done numerous clean installs of windows and it works for a while and then just gives me the BSOD previously mentioned. I will check the hard drives themselves to see if i do have them correctly set up (slave master etc)


Thanks for all the help. Now I see what trap 17 means by a quality forum.

A sure sign that your hard drive is damaged in some way - exactly the same happened on one of my machines a while ago before the hard drive completely went. Back up all of your data now, while you can, and get a new hard drive on its way, just in case it does die completely.



Glad we could all help