I have windows xp pro. I am at a loss. When I turn my computer on it boots to a full blue screen that says UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME.
I can get it to go to boot options screen, safe mode, restore to last known good configuration, etc.
I've tried all of them and I still get the same screen. I've tried booting to the XP CD but it tells me "boot to atapi cd rom: failure".
I've tried hooking up the HD to another computer and it won't boot at all, it just stays a black screen with a blinking cursor in the top left corner.
I would like to just do away with XP once and for all and stick to windows ME. How do I format and start over? Thanks.
Seems like a pity to do such a thing. If you Google for UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME you'll probably come across the answer on ComputerHope.
However you ask, "How do I format and start over?" so I just need to know some more about your hardware/software setup.
(I used to use ME on this computer until I fitted a new drive and installed XP Professional. The first thing I had to do was to fit more RAM. So if you haven't done this then this could be part of the problem. My old drive gave up the ghost after four years use with ME.)
Is your original ME installation an OEM installation or do you have an MS ME CD?
Is your XP CD a full or upgrade version, and does it have SP2?
(All XP installs run better when a clean install can be done with an XP SP2 CD rather than adding SP2 on top of other software which may not be entirely compatible. If your XP CD doesn't have SP2 you can easily slipstream SP2 together with your XP CD and burn an XP SP2 CD using AutoStreamer 1.0.33)
I really don't want that you give up on XP as it is definitely a better OS than ME, which is limited as to system resources.
But.
If your hard-drive is formatted to FAT32 just use your ME bootdiskette and run fdisk to delete the old partitions, make new ones, set the Primary DOS drive to Active, and re-boot to begin formatting.
If the old partitons are formatted to NTFS you can use the XP CD to delete them and then do the above.
If they won't delete, and some NTFS partitions can be stubborn, you can use this
DELPART BOOTDISKAlso, rather than change the BIOS sequence you can use this bootdisk which will automatically re-direct the boot to the CD-ROM
BIOS BOOTDISKThe real 'secret' of maintaining an operating system is to partition the drive, set it all up as you would like it to be and then make a drive image of the C: drive, so that you can easily restore when you have a serious problem.
So let us know which way you want to go and give as much information as you can and we'll be pleased to try to assist you.
Click on the link below for more info.
