Any have experience with "unmountable boot volume"?

[elocs]

I lost 2 laptops to that in 2 weeks. The first was a Windows 10 that I took in to the computer shop and charged $65 to be told it needs a new hard drive at a cost of around $100. That's a nonstarter for a $300 laptop that's 4 years old.

Two weeks later my 5 year old Windows 7 laptop displayed the Blue Screen of Death with the same message: Unmountable Boot Volume.
Since I already knew the deal with that I didn't go any further. But it makes me wonder if I had gotten a virus or something to lose 2 laptops in 2 weeks to the same thing even though I used Avast antivirus in both, one being the paid version.

I have since left Windows behind and for less money I've got a Chromebook that meets all of my needs.

[Brainfodder]

1. Replace failed hard drives with SSD in the laptops and Linux distro load them?

Solid State drives, 1TB now under $150.

Sub $50 for a 250 gig one, which is adequate for a basic surfing/utility box.

[elocs]

2. The cost is not worth it for 2 old and inexpensive laptops.

I reckon I got my money's worth out of both of them but surprised they both bit the dust from the same thing in such a short time. I'm just not interested in messing with them or using Linux.
I've moved on, especially from Windows, but it still puzzles me.

[Midnightwalk]

3. Two disk failures in two weeks

It can happen but it could be something environmental.

Spinning disk drives don’t like mechanical shock or temperature extremes. Even when powered off but that’s more forgiving. I don’t think they are more sensitive to electric shock than other components but im not sure.

Other harsh conditions or contaminants could be a factor.

Or you might have ticked off some tech support person and they smote your hardware with their god like powers (yeah right).

[elocs]

4. I used these laptops like a desktop computer in my living room

so they weren't moved and when I would use them, one at a time, it would be on a laptop cooler and also I had a small external fan blowing on them.
I had noticed that if I would power them off I would have trouble when I powered on again and wished I had just left it on.

Years ago I had a Mac Mini that crashed and burned just weeks after its warranty expired and then my old desktop died the next week so I've been through this before.
Luckily I had an external hard drive that saved my data this time.

[mr_lebowski]

5. if you have full backups, replacing a laptop drive yourself is a matter of a handful of screws

removing back cover, one or two screws and one cable on the HD, and slip a new one in. reverse. you can get small spinning lappie drives for $50. then restore to the new HD.

however, that does require good backups that image the whole Windows install, not just files. like acronis or macrium reflect (which has a great free version to do this).

sounds like you're good but for anyone else ...

[elocs]

6. I want nothing more to do with Windows, ever if I can help it. n/t

[CloudWatcher]

7. might be able to fix it

Unmountable means that the disk was detected, but that the files on it were corrupted to a point that the filesystem was not able to be "mounted" and made available.

It may not be a sign of a failed hard drive. E.g. a really nasty Windows bug or a really nasty Windows virus could scribble random bits on the disk and cause this failure.

Here's on tutorial on what "might" help

Another thing to try is to just erase the disk and try re-installing windows again.

Given that you had multiple failures like this fairly quickly, I'm tending toward guessing you had some malware that hosed your systems. Of course, that's just a guess.

Good luck!

[elocs]

8. Thanks for the advice but I want nothing more to do with Windows.

I've already spent a lot of frustrating hours trying to deal with this problem with limited computer abilities. It's too bad it happened to both at the same time, but both laptops were old and inexpensive and personally for me they're not worth any more bother.
I have all of my data from my Windows 7 laptop saved on an SSD external drive and that's all I want.
I am now using an inexpensive Chromebook and that's really all that I need.

[CloudWatcher]

9. Bye bye windows :)

I understand ... I ditched Windows (for the most part) for Macs a few decades ago. And Chromebooks are even easier.

Btw -- just remember that the "cloud" is just another name for somebody else's computer. I'd still make local backups of anything important to you. But I suspect you know that

Cheers!

[elocs]

10. I will have very little on the cloud.

I had a Mac Mini years ago that crashed and burned within weeks of its warranty expiring and ironically, just like this time, my Windows computer died the same week.
The reality is that I don't do much of anything more than surf the web anyhow. In the month I've had the Chromebook I haven't even downloaded any apps.

On the unmountable boot volume problem, my laptops seemed to be ok if I did not shut them down at night. It was when I powered up the next morning that I would experience problems.
It's still a bugger to me why both crashed and burned so closely together.