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chkdsk c: /f – An Unmountable_Boot_Volume story…

I had problems with a virus recently making posts to my Facebook profile of all things. When I first noticed the problem I started going through in my head what I did in the past couple of days to expose my laptop to malware. The cause was simply down to being lax updating my AVG antivirus.  Always, Always, Always keep your anti-virus up to date

So I got home after my work day and set to work killing this virus. First came MalwareBytes which detected two malware and one trojan.

It was then time for an AVG update. After one definition update I ran the updater a second time and more definitions were installed (I’d been very lax)

All was well until I restarted the laptop. Which is when my problems started. The laptop wouldn’t boot back into the OS.

I could detect a bluescreen but couldn’t see what the error message was.

If this happens to you boot into F8 (Safe Mode) then choose the option to “Disable automatic restart on system failure” – this will give you a chance to see what’s causing the blue screen.

In my case it was an Unmountable_Boot_Volume.

I can only put this down to the virus corrupting my MBR when Malware Bytes removed it. Nasty…

So I set about booting into my WinXP setup cd to access the recovery console and run the fixmbr cmd to repair my hard disks Master Boot Record. This had no effect however. Fixboot was a non starter also.

It was at this point that I began to think I’d need something more powerful. My second thought was Microsoft must have a fix for this?

CHKDSK – chkdsk really? The program that runs when your PC restarts after it’s power plug caught your foot? Yes – That chkdsk….

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555302

chkdsk driveletter: /f

In my case chkdsk f: /f

Damn if it didn’t work! Here’s what I got back….

chkdsk


I’ll never underestimate chkdsk again…

The Blog of Martin Birrane