R60 Unmountable boot volume blue screen and no rescue and recover options on think vantage.

[davegan]

Hello. My R60 blue screened today with a Unmountable Boot Volume message. I've tried restarting in all possible ways, safe mode etc etc and it just reverts to the blue sceen. I've tried the Think Vantage system to rescue and recover but it isn't recognising any files or any back up to restore to. I'm plugging a USB in before I turn on the machine, following the instructions etc but it doesn't bring up any files or folders from any drive to rescue, the searches yield 0 results and then, when I try to restore it, it doesn't offer any back ups to revert to! I have definitely clicked yes many times when prompted to back up. To make matters worse, I got the computer through a company IT department and they prepped it for me so I have no discs to go with it!! It has all my photos on it and worse, all my financials and business plan info as I'm just about to start a new business. I got it in 2007 so well out of warranty. Any advice/help would be greatly appreciated.(I have a feeling it's very bad though!) David.

[ajkula66 Guru]

Welcome to the forum!

Your hard drive might have gone bad. Download a PC Doctor for DOS bootable CD, burn it as an ISO (bootable) file and boot from it, then run all the hard drive diagnostics from there.

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?LegacyDocID=MIGR-56222

Good luck.

[davegan]

Thanks George. Way over my head in terms of knowledge but my techie sister's looking at it in work tomorrow so I'll definitely pass that on. Cheers! David.

[davegan]

Hmmm. At the PC DOC downlad stage but only giving me options to run or cancel, no Save option to burn to disc. Not having much luck with this. 

[davegan]

Hi again George. Finally got that to run and apparently all is fine, which obviously isn't the case. I ran full diagnostics and all passed. Still blue screening, still no access to r and r files and no option to have anyone look at it until early next week. Can you think of any other tricks to save it or access files for recovery? Sorry for being a pest but I'm useless with computers. Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Thanks, David.

[zoltanthegypsy]

David,

When you were clicking "yes" when prompted to back up, had you configured R&R to save the backups on that USB drive?  If not, you were probably just saving backups to the local drive.

There's a (small) chance that you can repair the filesystem if the hardware is otherwise OK.  (I don't know if PC Doctor has already checked the FS, or if it is just checking for hardware problems).  If you can lay hands on a Microsoft XP install CD, you might try the fix in this KB:

Microsoft Support - Unmountable Boot Volume

Z.

[davegan]

Thanks Z.
You're probably right re the backups but I know there were a few there before, whether done correctly or not, there were options but they're gone now though. I also flicked Yes for a back up on Wednesday, got a message saying insufficient memory and it was dead within the hour.
I hooked up another clapped out laptop though that sometimes works, typed up some docs, copied them to my usual pendrive last night and now this laptop is don't the same thing, so I'm now thinking virus.
Total pain in the behind!
I think I can get the xp dice so will certainly try that ASAP.
Cheers!
David.