Dell Laptop will not boot up

[Amber]

My friend has a Dell laptop and when you turn it on it goes to a blue screen with an error saying:

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

UNMOUNTABLE_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 your hardware of software manufacturer for any windows updates you might 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 (0x8172BD98,0xc0000006,0x00000000,0x00000000)

I have tried as much as I can. You can select safe mode, but the same error screen comes up. When you start it and push F8, Advanced Startup Options is not there. Any ideas?

[Sgt Beavis]

You can't get into safe mode because the laptop cannot mount the hard disk. If it can't mount it, it cannot boot from it.

Put in a Windows XP or Windows 2000 install disk and boot the system. You will come to an option menu where you can select the RECOVERY CONSOLE option. Select that option.

You may need to logon with the laptops admin password.

In the console, enter the following command

chkdsk /r

Reboot. If that doesn't work, there is a good chance the Hard drive is dead......

[Beagle]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;555302

Recovery console certainly worth a try. I don't think you'd get this far if the drive was bad since the OS generating the error is on the drive. :) If the drive was bad, you'd never get this far...

[cbrjames]

It was my laptop, and it was the hard drive itself. I was told that those pos laptops always have problems with the hard drive. Ohwell. Thanks for the info anyways guys.