HELP! Unmountable_boot_volume - BAD SECTOR COUNT

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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RichardLatulippe
Posts: 4
Joined: 23 Jul 2012, 17:48

HELP! Unmountable_boot_volume - BAD SECTOR COUNT

#1 Post by RichardLatulippe »

Help! My computer won't boot!
Windows says my boot volume is unmountable.
TestDisk says my hard drive partition has a BAD SECTOR COUNT.
I managed to salvage the files but can't rescue the disk.
What is it I'm not getting here? Help me out please!

Here are some details:

I own a Toshiba Satellite A10 laptop computer running Windows XP with an internal 40 Gb hard drive.
Printed on the drive is the following info:
Travelstar, hgst.com, Cyls 16383 Heads 16 Sects 63

Lately when I boot I see the Windows logo, and then a blue screen saying
UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME
and
*** STOP 0x000000ED (0x86385E30, 0xC0000015, 0x00000000, 0x00000000).

I made sure the hard drive was well connected.

I looked into my CMOS Setup and found nothing.

I tried booting from the Windows CD and running a few DOS commands:
chkdsk/r says the volume contains errors,
fixboot and fixmbr say the boot sector is damaged, and
fdisk/mbr didn't work.

I downloaded and ran utilities found on the HD's manufacturer's web site.
Nothing changed.

I finaly created a Ultimate Boot CD v5.1.1 containing TestDisk v6.2.
TestDisk sees the drive
> Disk /dev/sda - 40 GB / 37 GiB - ATA IC25N040ATMR04-0.
and it sees the Intel/PC partition
> Disk /dev/sda - 40 GB / 37 GiB - CHS 4864 255 63
When I chose [Analyse] it says:

Current partition structure:
Partition Start End Size in sectors
1 * HPFS - NTFS 0 1 1 4863 254 63 78140097 [S3A1377D003]
Bad sector count

The I chose [QuickSearch] and it says:

Disk /dev/sda - 40 GB / 37 GiB - CHS 4864 255 63 (en noir sur vert)
Partition Start End Size in sectors
>* HPFS - NTFS 0 1 1 4863 254 63 78140097 [S3A1377D003]
Structure: Ok. ...

At this point I can list the files and copy them to a USB drive.
Great! Thanks TestDisk and merci beaucoup Christophe Grenier!
But can I bring the HD back to life?
I tried to copy the backup boot sector over and rebooted,
I tried to rebuild the boot sector and rebooted,
I tried to repair the MFT and rebooted,
I tried writing TestDisk MBR code to the first sector and rebooted,
nothing worked.

I tried posting on the french section of this forum two weeks ago but got no answer.

I'm lost. Why does TestDisk say my partition has a BAD SECTOR COUNT?
What can I do to save this hard drive?
Please, somebody help me!

User avatar
Fiona
Posts: 2835
Joined: 18 Feb 2012, 17:19
Location: Ludwigsburg/Stuttgart - Germany

Re: HELP! Unmountable_boot_volume - BAD SECTOR COUNT

#2 Post by Fiona »

Unmountable_boot_volume indicates a damaged file system.
Usually it's not a case for partition recovery.
Can be solved using chkdsk /r or chkdsk driveletter: /r from your windows CD.
What windows do you have?
Win7/Vista you can use a command prompt / terminal from your system recovery options and winXP from your "Recovery Console".
It's an exhaustive check, takes a while and chkdsk tries to recover data even from bad sectors.

Fiona

RichardLatulippe
Posts: 4
Joined: 23 Jul 2012, 17:48

Re: HELP! Unmountable_boot_volume - BAD SECTOR COUNT

#3 Post by RichardLatulippe »

As I said earlier, I did try that chkdsk /r command, it stopped after 40% with errors that couldn't be fixed.
So anyways, I bought a new hard drive, but I still wonder what happened to my previous one and why does TestDisk say "Bad sector count".

User avatar
Fiona
Posts: 2835
Joined: 18 Feb 2012, 17:19
Location: Ludwigsburg/Stuttgart - Germany

Re: HELP! Unmountable_boot_volume - BAD SECTOR COUNT

#4 Post by Fiona »

Bad sector count means that the amount of the sectors doesn't match to your partition.
If you use a LiveCD like Ultimate Boot CD geometry can differ also.
Normally 2.5 inch disk geometry is 240 heads and 3.5 inch disk is 255 heads.
TestDisk 6.2 is pretty obsolete.
Can you use another Live CD?
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Livecd
In case I could offer you a FreeDOS-Live CD as a self burning ISO (windows).

If chkdsk doesn't work or hang, did you check repair MFT?
Should only be used in conjunction if chkdsk doesn't work.
But to alter a file system should be the last resort.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Advanced ... n_NTFS_MFT
Next step for you might be having another try to run chkdsk /p /r from WinXP recovery console
Chkdsk /p is only available under WinXP and the recovery console.

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