Member Avatar for jean122

helle everyone,

I have a big problem.
I was reinstalling windows xp professional on my sisters pc and it rebooted and it give me a BSOD Unmountable boot volume.

I have tried everything. I tested the HDD and its in perfect condition. no bad sectors or problems.
I get this problem only at windows xp installations.

the specs of the pc:

Fujisti siemens motherboard ( it was a server board)
80gb hdd and 160gb hdd.
Pentium 4 HT 3.0 ghz
1gb ram
ati radeon hd 5450 1 gb

I hope someone knows the solution.

Jeannot Thewissen

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Dani AI

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Short summary and final outcome: the Unmountable Boot Volume failures during the XP install turned out not to be a corrupt OS image or a bad disk, but a failing onboard IDE controller on the Fujitsu‑Siemens board (confirmed and reported by ). Intermittent successes when removing RAM or another drive were a key symptom pointing away from the media and toward unstable hardware.

Why this happens: that blue‑screen during setup can be caused by filesystem corruption, driver incompatibility, or — as here — the storage controller failing while the OS is trying to read/write the volume. A controller problem can let the disk pass simple surface tests but still drop or corrupt I/O at the electrical/controller level. That explains why a more modern OS on the same machine might boot fine while an XP install fails: different drivers, timing and I/O patterns can mask hardware faults.

Practical diagnostic checklist (in order of low effort to higher effort):

  1. Inspect power and data connectors and the motherboard around the disk connectors (look for bulging caps, damaged pins or loose solder).
  2. Run a vendor bootable diagnostics and read S.M.A.R.T. attributes from a live environment to check the drive itself.
  3. Run a standalone memory tester to rule out RAM corruption.
  4. Bypass the onboard controller: attach the drive through a USB‑SATA/IDE adapter or install a cheap PCI(e) controller card and attempt the install again. Success here isolates the fault to the motherboard.
  5. If data must be preserved, use an external adapter or a live USB environment to copy files before further experiments.

Remediation and options: a failed onboard controller usually means board replacement, or using an add‑in controller as a low‑cost workaround. If XP is required only for legacy apps, consider installing a modern OS and running XP in a VM. Thanks to and for early troubleshooting ideas; the thread’s resolution (faulty IDE controller) is the most useful takeaway for similar cases.

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Member Avatar for bprosic

Is it a blue screen with message BSOD?
If you are using Sata HDD then:

Try to change in BIOS, HDD Mode from AHCI to IDE Combined mode or leave AHCI in BIOS and load Sata drivers during installation of windows XP. U need floppy disk for drivers or you can copy the drivers into windows xp installation disk.

If you are using IDE HDD (PATA) then:
goto BIOS and load the Fail-Safe default settings.

OR

Boot with windows xp installation disc, run recovery console and run
chkdsk /r

Hope this helps

Member Avatar for jean122

already tried that, and the bios doesnt have a fail safe mode.
I tried the windows installation on different hard drives and with different installation cd's

Jeannot

Member Avatar for jean122

forgot something
sometimes it boots in the installation, after I removed some hardware (ram or another hdd )
but it always comes back

Member Avatar for bobbyraw

are you using a CD or a flash drive for the installation Media.
Does the Installations stop at the same section each time
is the cd drive a IDE or sata
how did you check the hard Drive for error.
base on your answers here are some other sugestions
format the drive in another computer use fat32 and full format
do a check disk with the drive attach to another PC
check the CD drive or burn another copy( rip a copy of the current cd to ISO then creadte another CD from the ISO)

Member Avatar for jean122

I tried in fat32, it did boot first time, then the bsod has come back
I tried to burn another cd too, that didn't workt either.
I did use checkdisk on another pc but that didn't work either.

Jeannot

Can it be the Motherboard????

Member Avatar for bprosic

Try replacing memory, put one memory into only one memory slot.
If doesnt work,
try moving your HDD to another computer then install win on that another computer.
This operation is only to exclude HDD damage.
If it is successful, then your HDD is ok. Then your motherboard is bye bye.
If it is unsuccessful, then problem is your HDD.

Member Avatar for jean122

one thing, windows 7 runs fine on the pc, but want to install xp because it will run faster.

Member Avatar for jean122

i am sorry that I didn't answer fast, I had to do things for school

Member Avatar for jean122

solved, ide controller motherboard was broken.

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