The New Computer Problems Thread

[Shadrok]

I've got a problem with my computer when I turn it on I get the message

A disk read error occurred
press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

So I do it and get a blue screen and this

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer

UNMONTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask yout hardware or software manufacturer for any windows updates you mite need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable Bios memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use safe mode to remove or disable components restart your computer, Press F8 to select Advanced startup options, and then select safe mode

Technical information:
***STOP:0X000000ED (0X8675DE30,0XC0000006,0X00000000,0X00000000)

My OS is Windows XP which for me atleast is living up to the whole XP
Also I've had this problem before and followed what a friend sugested (aka Reformat the computer) but I'm wondering if there is any way to get any of my save data off before doing that.

[Aridas]

Yeah, while I'm too tired to be very specific right now, you might wanna find someone who can recover what's possible, and just get a whole new drive. If my suspicions are correct (and that would make this NOT just a random rare screwup on the computer's part that can or can't be recovered), then your hard drive has gone faulty somewhere and isn't all that good to go and needs an evac.

Though that might not be anything to do with the problem... I really don't know what UNMONTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME is right now, specifically. Well, at least which thingamabob it's referring to.

[xHaZxMaTx]

I'm pretty sure the same thing happened to me when an older drive I was using died.  You could try getting your stuff off by booting from another hard drive, but if it's what happened to me (hopefully not) then all your stuff's gone.

[Aridas]

As an alternative (if the drive is actually dead) you could pay hundreds (if not thousands) to have the drive's platters migrated to an identical drive, just so you'd have THEM in a working drive and possibly easier to recover (though it all depends on how much you value whatever's broken, wherever it's broken)

[Darkmoon]

May as well make this the new computer problems trhead. Just fyi.

[Aridas]

Ah, I just found something in one of my magazines while randomly browsing for no particular reason... Though I don't know the occasion, if it's NOT a fudged hard drive (I don't know how you'd be able to tell, sorry), this should fix the boot problem in a minor case:

"see if you can get into the recovery console by booting up from the Windows CD. When there, type chkdsk /r and hit Enter. When that's done, type in fixboot and hit Enter. Restart your computer and see if you can run a repair--or fresh--install of XP on the drive."

[Tapewolf]

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer

UNMONTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

My OS is Windows XP which for me atleast is living up to the whole XP
Also I've had this problem before and followed what a friend sugested (aka Reformat the computer) but I'm wondering if there is any way to get any of my save data off before doing that.

Assuming that it said "unmountable boot volume", that's not a good sign.  I might be able to fix it/salvage the data with physical access to the machine, but I'm not sure what else to suggest.
Do you know, by any chance, if the disk was formatted FAT32 or NTFS?  It's probably the latter, but you never know.

If you know anyone who's good with a linux rescue disk, it might be time to give them a call.  I hope it works out, but if not, do you have a data backup strategy?

[Ryudo Lee]

MSKB mentions UDMA.  Check your BIOS settings and see if you can change your DMA settings. - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297185

In your BIOS POST screen, does it list your HDD's by model number?  If not, you may have either a bad ribbon cable, or worst case, a dead drive.

Other places I've seen this happen say to not use chkdsk /r but to just do chkdisk without any arguments.

[Shadrok]

Assuming that it said "unmountable boot volume", that's not a good sign.  I might be able to fix it/salvage the data with physical access to the machine, but I'm not sure what else to suggest.
Do you know, by any chance, if the disk was formatted FAT32 or NTFS?  It's probably the latter, but you never know.

If you know anyone who's good with a linux rescue disk, it might be time to give them a call.  I hope it works out, but if not, do you have a data backup strategy?

Yeah I messed up on that it should have been unmountable not unmontable.
The disk format I think is FAT32.
As for backups I have most of my files on my portable hard drive, soon to be put to DVD.

The files that I'm wanting to get off my computer's hard drive are mostly newly made files like the colored version of King Gray talking and web page bookmarks.

Ah, I just found something in one of my magazines while randomly browsing for no particular reason... Though I don't know the occasion, if it's NOT a fudged hard drive (I don't know how you'd be able to tell, sorry), this should fix the boot problem in a minor case:

"see if you can get into the recovery console by booting up from the Windows CD. When there, type chkdsk /r and hit Enter. When that's done, type in fixboot and hit Enter. Restart your computer and see if you can run a repair--or fresh--install of XP on the drive."

MSKB mentions UDMA.  Check your BIOS settings and see if you can change your DMA settings. - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297185

In your BIOS POST screen, does it list your HDD's by model number?  If not, you may have either a bad ribbon cable, or worst case, a dead drive.

Other places I've seen this happen say to not use chkdsk /r but to just do chkdisk without any arguments.

Ok I think I'll try that and see if it works.

Thanks everyone for the input.
*crosses his fingers*
let's hope it works.

**EDIT**
By the way,how long do hard drives last?
I've had my computer since late 2001.

[Ryudo Lee]

Hard drive lifetimes really depend on a lot of factors, mainly wear-and-tear, temperature, the amount of data you keep on it, how many virii have hit it... stuff like that.  I've got two Maxtor's in my current computer that are at least 5 years old and still running strong.  In my experience, the more you take care of your hardware, the longer it will last.  But of course, don't be complacent... make sure you have a fairly decent backup strategy.

Most manufacturer's do give a life expectancy of their harddrives.  You should look up the harddrive's model number and see what the manufacturer says about it.

[Aridas]

I don't think viruses getting on it have anything to do with hard drive lives, especially considering I haven't heard of too many that actually did kill a hard drive. They should last pretty long though, or I wouldn't have 20 year old computers lying around >.>

[Ryudo Lee]

I'm talking about the ones that can cause you to have to do a lot of cleanup work.  No piece of software can kill a piece of hardware, but any hardware will run down after extended use.

[Tapewolf]

No piece of software can kill a piece of hardware, but any hardware will run down after extended use.

This doesn't help Shadrok any, but about 13 years ago, a friend of mine tried to write a .MOD player.  When he ran the sound format converter code, the machine froze - forever.

My initial guess (which later turned out to be more-or-less correct) was that he had converted the system BIOS from signed Amiga PCM format into unsigned PCM.  I can't remember how, but they did manage to restore the BIOS from a floppy disk which Intel (or AMI) sent the computer lab.  I went home that night thankful that I didn't have an upgradable BIOS on my machine

[Ryudo Lee]

I stand corrected.  When the system BIOS is concerned, yeah, software can kill it, especially if you don't flash it properly, or in Tape's friend's case, accidentally flash it (man, that had to suck).

[Tapewolf]

I stand corrected.  When the system BIOS is concerned, yeah, software can kill it, especially if you don't flash it properly, or in Tape's friend's case, accidentally flash it (man, that had to suck).

Oh, we thought it was dead funny.  So did the admins. Fortunately we were on very good terms with the people who ran the computer department at college, I dare say our little group was composed of the "star pupils", as it were.  When we first joined our teacher had a collection of stories of things past pupils had done... I'm pretty sure that one got added to the collection.
The department also encouraged experimentation a lot - I think the worst part of it was that the machine we took down was the only one with the scanner and OCR software.

The big disappointment at Uni (college in the UK being a two-year intermediate stage between school and University) was the control freakery - they seemed to be afraid to teach us anything for fear that we might use it against them.  Experimentation was absolutely forbidden.  But I digress.
The moral is that it is usually difficult to damage software through hardware

[Shadrok]

Well I tried the chkdsk /r , fixboot, and even a complete reformat of my hard drive and it's still giving me the same message. I guess the hard drive is just shot

I'm just glad I saved most of my files to my portable hard drive before the computer died (just wished I had managed to save some of my photoshop brushes )
Over all when compaired to a hard drive problem I had late last year, the file loss was keep to a minimum (mostly bookmarks and newly scanned sketches along with some brushes, which can be recreated or re-downloaded)

Thanks everyone for your help.

[Tapewolf]

Glad you rescued most of it.  Here's hoping that XP will let you reinstall it after the hard disk has changed.

[Tapewolf]

This is a problem I've just solved - a ZyXEL Prestige 660 wireless DSL router.  I've never done wireless networking in Linux before and I was doing my head in trying to figure out why I couldn't get a DHCP lease although I could via ethernet, and why it would only work with an unencrypted link.

Well it turns out the little bastard ships with broken firmware by default ('fault' being the active part here).  Despite the fact that the newer version's changelog consisted solely of "Add support for new ZYxxxx chip" since the previous version, it fixed both problems and I no longer have to have that cable dangling down the stairs, which is good.

The main reason I'm posting this is to ask what they were thinking when they send a wireless DSL router that cannot route DSL wirelessly into the shops?  Do they have no QA testing at all?

[Ryudo Lee]

They probably benchmarked it on their systems.  And since it worked on their systems, they deemed it good enough for retail.

[Tapewolf]

They probably benchmarked it on their systems.  And since it worked on their systems, they deemed it good enough for retail.

I think the firmware worked properly in the earlier revisions and was broken in a subsequent production run of the product.  That I can kind of accept, but they must have really dropped the ball on the regression testing.

[GabrielsThoughts]

My mom recently purchased a new windows Vista PC but it won't let her open Internet explorer because it has an "unidentified publisher"...the computer is a Hewlette Pakard(?) if that makes a difference.

[Reese Tora]

More details please.  A screen capture of the error if possible, or the text of it.

My guess is that one or more of the drivers related to accessing the internet are not on the 'list' of windows approved drivers.  As such, windows vista wouldn't let you use them because it's "safer" for you, and because unapproved drivers could be used to circumvent thier precious DRM software(if designed to... such a driver would not be approved if it could)

Your best bet is probably going to be contacting HP support and asking them what they are going to do about making thier faulty product work.

[Darkmoon]

For future reference, we have a computer problems thread. You should use that for computer related issues.

[Aridas]

*takes a screen shot of Darkmoon's grammatical typo*

Shouldn't that be "we"?

[superluser]

For future reference, for have a computer problems thread. You should use that for computer related issues.

Does this mean you're not moving this into the computer problems thread?  So I can respond here without worrying about getting the smackdown?

OK.  Here goes.

GT, how are you accessing IE?  Is it through the desktop or the start menu or...what?  You might be accessing it through a shortcut that tries to send you to some sort of web-based application.  It's unlikely, but possible.

The text of the error would really help.  It might be a driver problem, but this sort of error sounds like a license/registration issue.  Unless you installed new hardware/software, it really shouldn't have bad drivers out of the box.

I think that you have to register Office in your name.  Maybe it's a similar thing with IE?

[Madd the Sane]

You're using vista.  That's the issue  

Seriously... I have no idea.  Not enough info; too new an OS.  HP should be a well-known company to MS; Steve Woz came from there and the company is fairly popular with its printers as well as computers.  Despite this, there is a reason why having a company make both the Hardware and software can be an advantage.

Now, if only Apple would use that level of DRM with their OS.  Then it would be an impenetrable fortress!    Since we all know that Vista is so impenetrable.

[Darkmoon]

I would care about my typos... but that would require effort.

If you understood what I said, then it needs no correction.

[Aridas]

My C64 says it has 0 bytes free, and refuses to do anything because of this. Am I SOL?

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

HTH, HAND.

[Dakata]

Whenever I try to import a video (So it makes lots of smaller videos) in Windows Movie Maker, and put some of 'em in the storyboard, and click something, it freezes. (WMM freezes, not my whole computer.)

And if I try to use another program like it, the computer shuts down. 'Cuz apparently, Window XP is a whore and doesn't want me using something not by Microsoft.

FIX IT.

Also, my dad did something with my laptop battery, and now it can only be 3%..or dead. (If I unplug it, it dies on me in like a minute. *Emo emo emo*)

...Fix it, fix it. fix it, fix it. fix it, fix it...