Unmountable_boot_volume stop error message

[sportsmomof3]

My son has a Dell Dimensions comp w/ Windows XP system
He was online & then all of a sudden a million pop ups came up & could not be stopped. So he turned off the computer & now Windows will no longer load but brings us to a page saying that Windows has shut down to save the computer from damage & gives the Unmountable_boot_volume message.

I have tried to restart & work in safe mode but no matter what choice I make (Safe mode, command prompt, last working, etc...) the comp acts as if its loading & then goes back to that ominous blue screen with the Unmountable_boot_volume error.

We tried to restart with his XP CD & every CD that came with his comp. Doesn't work. I made a floppy MS Dos boot disk from my comp & tried restarting with that - still same screen comes up Unmountable_boot_volume

Any suggestions before my son throws it out the window................

[gerbil]

I don't know what discs you have with your machine, but first you need to change the boot order - early on in POST hit F10, or maybe Del, and change the order so that CD boot is first...[if HD boot is first your sys will not search any further]. Now you need Recovery Console; when in that run:
chkdsk /p
No go still? Then run:
bootcfg /rebuild
in the console. A search will be made for any OS's on your machine, when they are found you will be queried about adding them to the boot.ini file.

[MidiMagic]

It's possible you have an unbootable disk in a removable drive. If so removing that disk will allow the compoter to boot.

A virus may have replaced the boot sector.

Or shutting the computer down wrong
damaged the boot sector.

You need your original windows disks to fix this.

.