Windows BSOD on startup after hard shutdown

After my comp (specs in sig) is hard shutdown, it always gives a BSOD at the windows logo screen with the bar going across the bottom. It always happens on the third bar, and says 'unmountable boot volume'.

It can be fixed by booting from CD, and doing a chkdsk /r /p with the the recovery console.
This takes forever, so i am wondering if there is someway i can speed this up / avoid it altogether. i remember the old 95 computers used to do an automatic checkdisk, which didn't need the CD.

I have 1 HDD completely free, so is it possible to install xp onto this drive, and boot / repair the usual boot disk from this at all??

Any ideas are greatly appreciated. I'm borrowing the XP CD from the IT tech dept regularly now and me thinks they're getting a bit pissed off.

thanks
profqwerty

p.s. (It's XP Pro SP2)

 

you could clone the disk from the *bad* to the good one with a variety of tools..
then you just pull out the old(bad) drive
windows should not be affected by this, and should boot normally

 

got a crash code? ie: 0x00000nn (parameter 1, parameter 2, parameter 3, parameter 4)

 

So does my XP Home SP2, if Win doesn't shut down properly. Your problem is something a bit more serious, never had it even after a power cut, "If you cannot boot into Windows (normal or safe mode), it may indicate that the file system on your hard drive, or the hard drive itself, is damaged. Microsoft provides a disk utility, checkdisk, that can help determine the state of your hard drive..."

Are you not allowed to make your own boot disk with chkdsk on?

 

I like using spinrite, but then again that's about $80 USD. It's like chkdsk on steroids, and will usually resolve issues like this. (They offer a 30 day money back guarantee, so if it doesn't work you aren't out the $80)

This also may be a sign of an up-coming (or already here) hard drive failure. Repairing and imaging it to a newer hard drive sounds like a good idea.

 

The boot disc is a Samsung SP2504C (not exactly old).

It boots fine after the chkdsk (i had to do it again today). the recovery console claims to have fixed one or more errors.

sorry i didn't record the crash code, and don't want to do it again, but it does say "unmountable boot volume".

the "SMART" thing says the HDD is "good", and apart from these two errors it is trouble free (touch wood).

I could clone this disc to the spare one, then use this one till it dies, then switch to the other one. I'm not exactly losing anything, just access to music + films + tv + games (so basically all the important things)

cpemma, how would you go about this? all google gives back is this magic 6 floppy disks for those who can't boot off of a CD

can anyone recommend a HDD cloning program (that's free) please?

sorry for the delay, but had to wait till today to get an xp disc

thanks,
profqwerty

 

I've never gotten it to work, but I know there is a way to copy a drive in linux using dd.

(the way this is helpful is you can boot into a live CD environment, mount your potentially bad drive, mount a good drive, and use dd to copy from one drive to the next)

You may have to run mbrfix from the XP CD on the new drive, just to make it bootable, but I'm not sure, as I've never done this. (So yeah, I know I'm not a ton of help... sorry just hoping to point in a direction and see if anyone else can clarify)

 

If you can boot off a CD then burn a few tools

• Ultimate Boot Disk - DOS-based but includes support for NTFS and long filenames AFAIK.
  
  
• Bart PE - uses your (legal) copy of XP to create a Win-based boot CD.

For floppy booting, go bootdisk.com but I don't know what support these have for NTFS-formatted hard drives and long filenames. I've added various programs to a DOS-boot pendrive, just in case.