UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME: Computer Speak for HP is Garbage!!

I have been mainly computerless for 9 1/2 days...let me tell you the story of why.....

Friday May 12- I get a call at work from my wife. I'm told that the computer 'froze' and that she coudln't get anything to work, and that the machine couldn't even be turned off. So to effectively hard boot it, she unplugged it. What she didn't know was that you can't just hit the power buttom to turn it off and on if it has froze, you have to hold it in for several seconds. The result of the unplugging is a system failure which will haunt me for the rest of my natural life....3 words on one blue screen taunting me: UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME.

This same night I arrive home thinking that this will be a simple restore and we'll be up and running again pretty quickly. I try every little trick I know form the restore screen to see the same 3 word message appear over and over again after every restart.

Saturday May 13th- Getting impatient to find out what the hell is going on with the pc, I pack up the wife and baby and head to work, where I can connect to the internet and research what my next steps are. I only find a couple metions of the error. Its cause is mentioned as probably resulting from an "Abonormal Shutdown". (I print this off, highlight that section and make sure to give it to my wife when I leave work) Basically, the microsoft site said to use the O/S boot disks to restart the computer. That's great, if you have a boot disk. HP did not provide me with one, nor provide instructions as to where to locate one for XP Home edition disks I would apparently require. This is part of my issue with HP.

Sat May 13th- Mon May 15th- I ask everyone I know that has a XP O/S if they have a boot disk. No one even remembers ever having one...I get a few tips on where to look but no actual disk.

Tues May 16th- Found downloadable start-up disks on a Microsoft windows update site. It requires 3.5" floppy disks, of which I have none. I buy some at a local Zellers department store; electronics section....the only thing I've bought at Zellers in the last 22 years...and quite fittingly, probably the last time I used a 3.5" disk....I'm suprised the disks don't headline their electronics section actualy...while i was in the store the cashier tried to get me to sign up for a Zellers credit/points card with club Z points. I was really surprised they still had these. After I said 'no' to the intial request, and the subsequent offer of 10% discount off my intial purchase, the cashier tried for the hard close with this line: "..aw come on, why won't ya get one?...". To which I replied, "with a sales pitch like that how could I say 'no'?". Cashier: "So you want one then?". Me: "No." I'm going to start eating my lunch down there from now on. I think it could be very entertaining.

This same day I try to download the start-up disks form work before i head home. The security at work won't allow me to download these. I'll have to find someone to do it for me. I e-mail my buddyMike to see if he can do it for me. We meet for coffee that night I give him the disks. Kudos to Mike for being a sport about this.

Thurs May 18th- E-mail Mike to see if he successfully downloaded the boot disks. He said he didn't have a chance and would try to do it today.

Fri May 19th- Mike e-mails me, says everything seemed to have worked and he could give me the disks tonight. We catch a movie that night (MI3- not bad...once you get past how fucking crazy Tom Cruise is in real life...which pretty much took me the first hour or so..)

Sat May 20th- Insert first of 6 boot disks, and restart computer...20 seconds later: "DISK I/O ERROR". What!?!?!?!? Was the disk corrupt? It obviously recognized it as a system disk, otherwise I would have gotten that stupid "non-system disk" error. I want to kill...the weekend of rage officially starts.

Later this morning I go to my inlaw's place and use their computer to research what could give me this error. All I get are instructions to check my BIOS settings. My what settings??? How do I get to that? There is my second beef with HP: Apparently, you can change the way you boot up and what runs on boot-up etc through your BIOS seettings...and apparently you can get to this by hitting F1 while you are starting up. Another thing HP never tells you anywhere when you buy one of their computers. (and I'm sure any computer savy person out there knows this...but I do not proclaim to be computer savy...but at the same time, its not like I'm a complete moron...I can read, if you just give me the damn instructions, I can figure it from there) Anyway, I go home, check all the settings...they're all still fine. The only other tip I could find was to "partition" my hard drive to accept the boot disk by typing a certain command at the a: prompt. Again, probably a wonderful idea, if you know where to go to get to the A: prompt...I was hoping it would be linked through the BIOS settings...no such luck. I missed Cops tonight...one of the worst days of my life!

Sun May 21st (today)- I went back to my inlaw's place first thing in the morning to look for a way to get to my A:prompt. I couldn't find these instructions anywhere, but I did stumble upon another shortcut. If you hit F10 while you start up with most HP pcs, there is a built-in Windows o/s system recovery...effectively a built-in boot disk...again that was never put in any of the manuals that came with the computer. Upon finding it, I simply had to hit one button that said start recovery...and 5 mins later I was good to go. Of course I had to spend most of the morning getting my internet, e-mail, office suite etc set up...and I have lost all files that weren't backed-up...but I am so furious at HP right now that none of that really matters.

My computer is almost 4 years old. I will be buying a new one in a year or two, and I can gurantee it will not be HP. The only good thing they make is steak sauce!