xp unmountable boot volume

I'm using XP Pro on my Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop. On startup, I get an unmountable boot volume stop error screen. I can't start safe mode or any other option on the F8 or F12 startup screen, as they all lead back to the unmountable boot volume screen. I've downloaded and burned a recovery console disk, but I can't get the computer to read and load the disk. I've tried F2, F8, F10, etc, but all paths lead back to the unmountable boot volume screen. Any suggestions? Rick

Hi Rick, welcome to WhatTheTech.

According to the Users Guide for the 8600, you get to BIOS Setup by pressing F2 as soon as the Dell Logo appears. You may have to do this multiple times to catch it.

To bring up the Boot Selection Menu, press F12 when the Dell Logo appears. Again, timing is critical.

See pages 96 and 97 here: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/syst…M/D77111LRs.pdf

Can you also verify the RC you created is bootable by trying it on another computer?
How did you create it?

Download and create a bootable CD from the .iso file XP Recovery Console

You don't burn the iso file itself to CD., you create a CD from the iso file using your CD burning software. There is a good freeware burner called ImgBurn which will do this. Might be worth installing ImgBurn and using it to burn the RC CD at 4X, no faster.

Thanks for the reply Rich. I got the link to this forum from a site with instructions to create the Recovery console disk. I followed your advise and finally was able to boot the CD with the iso file. Now I'm 44% completed with stage 4 of CHKDSK. Hopefully it will resolve my issues. Thanks again. Rick

I hope it fixes it as well. Thanks for letting me know, and please let me know if it does fix the problem.