Unmountable Boot Volume

On the bright side, the drive is recognized. First thing I'd check would be the master/slave settings - be sure they're correct for your configuration. A wrong jumper setting on either drive will screw you up every time.

Not real sure this will work for you (its pretty geeky - not for the timid or the 'puter illiterate), but I've found BartPE to be an exceptionally useful, powerful, versatile tool - provided you build it correctly and appropriately for your particular need, and that you know how to use it.

Essentially, you create a bootable CD or DVD from which Windows XP (SP1 or greater) will run, independently of the operating system on the subject machine's hard drive. It does have limitations; its relatively sluggish, and the number of concurrent apps it will run isn't real large (not good for multi-tasking ), but for what it seems to me you want to do - pull files and folders from the troubled drive and put them somewhere else - it ought to do fine.

You'll need the free version of an app called ISOBuster (the paid version offers more functionality, but you won't need the additional features if all you're gonna do is make a standard WindowsXP BartPE CD), a CD or DVD burning program capable of burning an ISO file {most of the major ones - Nero, Creative, etc, are fine), and a Win XP install disk - an actual Microsoft Windows XP install disk, not an OEM Restore disk. If your WinXP disk is already embedded with SP1 or SP2, you're pretty much good to go. Otherwise, when you set up the BartPE image to burn, you'll hafta Slipstream SP2.

You can download SP2 HERE (Note: Its a huge file (272391 KB, around 11 or 12 hours at 56K download speed, about a half hour at 1.5MB broadband download speed) - if you're on dialup or less than 1MB broadband, its prolly better to Order the free XPSP2 CD directly from Microsoft.

Unless you're familiar and comffortable with the basics of what's outlined above, I suggest you do lotsa reading before trying it. There are plenty of good tutorials out there to google up. And even if you are ultrageeky, be sure to read and understand all the documentation accompanying BartPE and ISOBuster before using them.

Just for grins and giggles - have you tried dropping to a DOS box and running chkdsk d: /r on it??

RULE #1- Don't write anything to the disk (don't format it since that writes to it.)
RULE #2 - See RULE #1

There are several recovery softwares out there. Most run less than $100 and many have a free trial version that at least lets you see if you can find files before buying it.

The first question is what type of drive was it formatted as? FAT or NTFS
The version Windows will give you a clue there. Win98 and earlier are FAT. NTFS for versions since then. If you upgraded from Win98 then I think it could be FAT or NTFS.

I just had the same thing happen to me with my Win98 machine that I was about to replace so I did some searching of recovery programs. A couple that seemed to do the trick are -

GetDataBack from http://www.runtime.org/

uneraser from http://www.diskinternals.com/

Both found my files - I used uneraser first on my wive's computer but then she wrote files to the drive before I finished the rescue which made it impossible for uneraser to see the files. (I put the bad drive on her system as slave which is where she writes files. Silly me. SEE RULE#1 Just a warning, it takes a long time for these programs to search the disk since they look for the directory structures. Don't let anyone else use the computer.)

Even after that problem when I installed GetDataBack on my new WinXP64 machine and put the drive in a USB case GetDataBack was able to search the drive and rebuild the directory to access the files. The trial version even lets you view graphic files in their viewer and open some files with an associated program like word documents in word.)

GetDataBack allows you to image your entire disk as well. I wrote the entire 20gb disk to a file on my 250gb file so if I screw it up further I can just copy it back to the disk.

There are several other similar programs out there. That is just my experience with 2 of them.

(I'm a glutton for punishment and want to rescue the entire disk yet which means I need to rebuild my FATs and the boot record using a disk editor since I haven't been able to find a program to do that automatically yet.)

I don't think DOS recognizes FAT32 or NTFS. Not sure if chkdsk will work on those partitions unless it is an updated version that came with the windows version you are using.

This from one of the Microsoft support pages

I admit I made an assumption that when he put the new disk in and installed Windows on it that he installed the same version that he had before. That didn't seem an unreasonable assumption. If he drops to a DOS Command Prompt the version of chkdsk that comes with WinXP for example, will do the job on any WinXP formatted disk for example.

You said DOS box and I assumed an old DOS computer lying around. Doesn't everyone have at least one of those if not 3 or 4? :wink:

Not me! I'm current enough to have a collection of old WinME boxes.

I ran chkdsk on the drive but via a command window when it was in as a slave and it got nowhere.
The program crashes.
That's what made me really start to worry.
I didn't drop down to a command prompt though. I ran chkdsk from inside XP.

I used to be a computer Uber-geek but since no one has any requirement for 6502 or Z80A machine code anymore I have dropped out of the top levels of TechnoDorkdom and gradually floated down to the layers of the Sadly Geeky when it comes to PCs.

The crashed drive is a Western Digital 120 gig WD Caviar WD1200.
Jumpers are OK. Had to change them anyway when I put it back in as a slave as it was the primary master.
It has/had Windows XP first release. No service packs, no updates. If you follow my meaning.

I don't like updating Windows anyway. It runs just fine as it is without any updates. Now before you start going bananas about all the wonderful things all thre SPs are supposed to take care of take account of the fact that I have an extremely sophisticated firewall and virus setup that uses a fair amount of custom software and expensive hardware to keep me safe on the web. I'm too paranoid for my own good basically.

The drive was FAT32.
I do have several other machines around but at the moment they're not in a useable condition.
The 250 gig, I replaced the 120 with as the primary drive, is running the same Windows and virus/firewall setup as the 120 gig had.

Nothing has been written to the drive after the crash. How do you write to a drive that bluescreens the PC anyway ?
There is only me that uses the machine.

I did run a program called TestDisk 6.1 and it said there were lots of read errors. I made very sure it didn't write anything to the disk though so no repairs have been done on anything. I just had it analyse the disk.
I found that by running a google for 'crashed hard drive recovery software'.

I'm not too worried about the drive physically as to be honest after I get the data off, if I can with your already very kind help, then I'm going to take great pleasure in vivisecting it.
Slowly and with prejudice.

That GetDataBack program looks good !
Downloading it now.

That reminds me, the crashed drive seems OK mechanically.
No 'clink-clonk' of a free fall head and no whining noises or skreeeeeeking from a head crash.

Well that GetDataBack program has done the trick so far.
Managed to get all the things off I needed, including 40 odd gigs of music I've spent the last several years transferring from CD.
All my Bryce 5 files and a bazillion emails, game saves, web site files etc...
And most important of all, the files for my drum company DM Drums.

So big thanks to Parados, Timberlandko and Fishin' for your help.
Thanks guys !