After my husband installed an internal Iomega Zip Drive, I am now getting an error message "Unmountable_Boot_Volume. The system was working fine before the addition and we have since removed the Zip drive, with the same results.

The system appears to be booting to Windows, then immediately shuts down with the above error message. I can boot into Safe Mode but of course, the features are limited. By way of the Recovery Console, I ran the CHKDAK /R last evening and evidently one error was corrected, however, the system still refuses to boot and gives the same error message. We plan on checking the cables this evening but for me, it stands to reason, if the system will boot into the Safe Mode, the cables are fine. I just did a reformat and complete reinstall last week so I am hoping that some of you might have some ideas of what to try. This is getting ridiculous!

I am using Windows XP Pro on a P4, 2.70 Intel processor, 1 gig RAM. Any help would be greatly appreciated as this has occured on my main "work horse" for our ministry.

Thanks!

Sue Pollock

Try the suggestions in this article. It does sound to me that your boot.ini file has been messed up as it says.

http://www.techtips4u.com/kb/sw/SW00014.htm

Hopefully these will work, if not I will look into the problem more closely.

Good luck.

Thanks for the input but I tried this earlier today. No success!

Run msconfig and see what your boot.ini file looks like.
If it looks something like this, it should be all right.

[boot loader]
time=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)partition(1)\Windows
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Windows="Microsoft Windows XP Professional"/fast detect/NoExecute=OptIn

The fact that you can boot into safe mode, but not normally, suggests you are having problems with one of your drivers.
Check the device manager [control panel\system\hardware] and see if it gives an indication of a problem with any of your device drivers. {safe mode still shows your normal drivers here}
It will usually indicate problems with a question mark or an x on any problem devices.

   The last time that I used Iomega (which was many years ago), it reassigned all of the drive letters in Windows.  This would explain why it is working in SafeMode and not in regular mode.  The error message suggests to me that the drive letter has been assigned but a boot drive (like, C drive) has not been mounted on it.
   If you removed the zip drive without uninstalling Iomega, it would still have the same problem.
   I would contact the Iomega people and ask them.  The problem is definitely associated with Iomega.

I appreciate ALL of the help but finally resigned myself to a reformat and reinstall, again - the 3rd time in eight days!

I had thought of the drive letter reassignment and had checked that. The system had assigned the zip to the "D" drive and changed the CD/DVD to "E." I had previously uninstalled the Iomega drivers, etc. but no success.

The only way I could get Windows to reload and reformat was to revert to Win 98, then upgrade to XP. The only problem still lingering with the system now is in the Bios. As long as I use the Bios "Fail Safe" defaults, Windows will boot. However, if I change to the Bios "Optimized Defaults," Windows goes into a loop at the opening screen and will not continue to load to the Welcome screen.

Again, thanks so much for all the suggestions; I'm just sorry nothing worked for me. This group is an excellent resource and I believe one of the best on the web!!!

Sue

Hi Sue:

Since you have gone through a new Win install      (a tedious process!) could I suggest that you consider doing an image of your drive, before you put too much new stuff on the computer.

Then if you run into difficulty, instead of having to reinstall Windows, the drivers, the updates, your favourite utilities, your list of bookmarks and all that, you simply put the image from a DVD or CD's back onto your computer. It takes about 15 minutes, and Presto! There you are with your computer setup as good as new. In fact, it is exactly what you had when you did the image.

Peter