[etaf]

My brothers HP pavilion 7924 has just started to go wrong .
1GH Celeron, 128MB memory, 30GB HD, DVDRom.
WinXP home.
They cannot find the recovery disk.

On booting - I get a menu message screen stating to boot in normal, safe, safe with command prompt, safe netwrk.
In all cases the same problem occurs.

Boots with starting windows and a white bar across the bottom of screen - followed by the windowsXP home flash screen.
then the following blue screen error

Unmountable_boot_volume
stop: 0X000000ED
(0X81E26C80, 0Xc0000032, 0X00000000, 0X000000000)


I cannot seem to get into the bios on boot - tried F2 and tried delete.

I used a bootable floppy and got to A:> but could not get to c:>(invalid drive specification). I could get to the DVD using R:> prompt ok and see the files on a CD.

I then unpowered the HD and rebooted to see what error I got - and got a completely different error stating no harddrive or harddrive had been changed.

anyhelp in fixing this problem apreciated. NOTE he cannot find the recovery CD.... but the PC does have the XP serial number on the side of the box.

 

[crjdriver]

Some things you can try. First download the hd mgf’s utility for checking the drive. The error code you have is a damaged file system. If the drive is failing, then you have found your problem. If the drive checks out ok then you can boot into the Recovery Console and use the chkdsk /r to repair the file system. Since you do not have an xp disk, download the six startup disks for xp from bootdisk.com. Boot with the disks and enter the RC that way.

 

[Dan O]

Here are 2 links to MS articles that may help, see:

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/q297/1/85.asp&NoWebContent=1

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/q315/4/03.asp&NoWebContent=1

 

[crjdriver]

Note you will need the admin password to access your xp install from the RC. I am guessing that it came preinstalled. In that case leave the password field blank when prompted for a password.

 

[etaf]

where would i get the hd mgf’s utility for checking the drive.
Its an HP PC

 

[crjdriver]

Open the case and see what brand of hd is installed. You go to the site of the mgf such as Western Digital, Maxtor, IBM, etc.

 

[etaf]

I cansee the make of drive - and on oneside of the case I can remove the screw for the HD but the otherside of case when removed still does not gain access to te drive.
any ideas how I get the drive out to see the make.

I have the 6 recoverydisks already, so I'll boot them and try.

 

[etaf]

I have loaded the bootdisks 6 from the usoft website - home edition and created the floppies twice and when i use the floppies the following occurs.

disk1 OK
disk2 - unable to load ntkrnlmp.exe error code 7....
exit

 

[crjdriver]

Try a different floppy. I have had quite a few problems with floppies that go bad after a while. As to your hd, you will have to see how it is attached. It may be necessary to pull the drive to read the make; most likely you will be able to read the lable with a flashlight.

 

[etaf]

that worked using a different floppy - however, still unable to get to work from recovery counsole.

However, I found that HP put a recvery partitiion on the drive using F10 to boot.
I tried a normal recovery and that failed.
But a full recovery has worked and the PC is back to default manufactures build........

anyway its working - so i'm just updating with the MS update CD - Sevice Pak 1 etc.

Thanks for all your support

 

[Dan O]

Thanks for sharing the good news. I will mark your thread solved.

 

[crjdriver]

Glad you got it to work, I would still check the hd for problems. If the disk is failing you would want to backup anything important and replace it.