Help!!! My Vista pc seems doomed!!!

[bdonley66]

The 1st thing to happen to it was the dreaded blue screen that says:  'unmountable boot volume' along with a few things to try such as booting with the Vista disk, etc.  So then I did try the disk to no avail!  And so then I went into the bios at boot & messed around in there a bit, but I don't think I really changed anything tho.  Now I have a black screen (no cursor even!) and I cannot boot from ANYWHERE or get into the bios - NOTHING!  Can someone please tell me I havent lost all my family photographs & videos???

[t_blake07]

Please modify your post so we can at least read it. Preferably black font. Then maybe we can assist you better. Thanks.

[t_blake07]

Ahh, much better. Thank you. 

Ok, first thing's first, what steps did you take when you tried the Vista disk?

[Allan]

The bios is no place to mess around. I suggest you disconnect from power, open the case, remove the battery, hold down the power button for half a minute to fully discharge, then wait another couple of minutes. Then put the battery back in and restore power to reset the bios - then you can go from there.

[bdonley66]

I know, I realize that but I thought I could try the suggestions the blue screen was suggesting.  But thank you for the battery reset idea - i'm gonna try that.

[t_blake07]

I know, I realize that but I thought I could try the suggestions the blue screen was suggesting.  But thank you for the battery reset idea - i'm gonna try that.

Odds are, resetting the CMOS/BIOS will get you to a point that you can then fix the "Unmountable Boot Volume" issue. Let us know when you've completed the battery step.

[bdonley66]

okay, I reset it after taking out the battery & I still get the same thing as before.  It makes 3 long beeps and the moniter tries to come on but just flashes then shuts completly off but the pc stays running.
Any ideas?

[Allan]

This is the first time you mentioned the beeps. Go to the website of your bios provider and see what 3 beeps means.

[bdonley66]

ok I went to the Intel website to where they told me these things to try;  1.)  download a bios recovery cd & boot with it.
                              that didnt work.

2.) take out the bios config jumper pin & boot with that same cd
                              that didnt work.

All hope of recovering family pics on that hard drive should be gone right?  Is there anything else to try?

[giardmi09]

If you have tried everything and you still can't recover windows then there is still hope for your files. As long as its just the operating system and not your hard drive that is physically damaged then you should be able to put that hard drive in another computer and copy your files over with no problems.

[patio]

When considering recovery of data the HDD has nothing to do with the system being able to boot or not...
Slave Drive Info...

The drive does NOT need to be bootable for you to retrieve your data...