# Blue Screen of Death



## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

DD's desktop has the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. She has a Dell with Windows XP Home edition. Upon booting up, she got the following message (on the blue screen):



> A problem has been detected and Windows has been shutdown to protect your computer.
> 
> UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME
> 
> ...


I am sure I'll need a recovery disk to fix this, but the disk that came with her computer is lost somewhere is storage building land. We do have another Dell with the same operating system, and I thought I knew how to make a recovery disk from that one, but so far I haven't been able to find a way to do it.

:help: :help:


----------



## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

One more point to add.

I can't start up in safe mode. Even when I try, it goes to the BSOD.


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Do you have an XP install CD? If so, try booting to the CD and doing a repair.


----------



## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

Nevada said:


> Do you have an XP install CD? If so, try booting to the CD and doing a repair.


Oh, how I wish. The disk is in a 16x30 storage building in one of 40 or so cardboard boxes.


----------



## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

Maybe I should be asking for a source of low grade demolition materials which will solve the problem. :badmood:


----------



## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

Ya'll please pray for me....I'm calling Dell Support. If you haven't heard from me in 12 hours or so, someone call the phone company and have my phone turned off.


----------



## OntarioMan (Feb 11, 2007)

A good place to start : 

- get the Hitachi/IBM drive fitness test software. It creates a boot disk and tests the drive. Its free on the net somewhere (google it).


----------



## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

:clap: Would you believe I just had a GOOD experience with Dell customer service? Make a note of this on your calendars, I believe this might be an historical moment!

I went on the online chat feature. We ran a test, then they decided to send a disk and call me back in two days to help do the fix. Took just over a half hour for the whole thing. In fact, the agent that I chatted with just called to verify the call back time.


----------



## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

Oh that doesn't surprise me at all that you got good service from Dell.~!
A few years ago I also Got That BSD~!!!
But I was Not as lucky as you I Could not Restore using the CD, I Could not do a THING with the drive, I called in they took me trough quite a few steps to check out things 4 of which I had already done, But to no avail~!
The ONLY thing left was a COMPLETE Reformat, so that would get everything off and start over~! And years later now I am still on the same Dell using and still on XP...
And Dell took me Step by Step By step on how to do it~!
And even called me back a little while later to make sure I had no problems and was installing the different programs etc.~!
Great Great Company Dell is~!!!


----------



## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

arabian knight said:


> Oh that doesn't surprise me at all that you got good service from Dell.~!
> A few years ago I also Got That BSD~!!!
> But I was Not as lucky as you I Could not Restore using the CD, I Could not do a THING with the drive, I called in they took me trough quite a few steps to check out things 4 of which I had already done, But to no avail~!
> The ONLY thing left was a COMPLETE Reformat, so that would get everything off and start over~! And years later now I am still on the same Dell using and still on XP...
> ...


I am afraid not every experience I've had with Dell has been as good, but I'll give credit where it is due. She even called me (all the way from India) to make sure we had the time and date right on the call back. I also got an e-mail with the log of our chat.


----------



## FrodoLass (Jan 15, 2007)

Did you try doing a Dell system restore? CTRL + F11 on reboot. You can restore the system to it's orginal condition, but you'll lose everything. My Dell computers didn't come with restore disks.


----------



## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

FrodoLass said:


> Did you try doing a Dell system restore? CTRL + F11 on reboot. You can restore the system to it's orginal condition, but you'll lose everything. My Dell computers didn't come with restore disks.


Thanks, I tried it but nothing happens.


----------



## FrodoLass (Jan 15, 2007)

deaconjim said:


> Thanks, I tried it but nothing happens.


Wow, that is weird. Sometimes it doesn't work the first time and I have to try it a couple of times. Hopefully the disks will straighten everything out for you. Sorry you've got a problem!


----------

