Unmountable boot failure

[thoughtcrime]

So, my girlfriend calls me the other day and says that the PC was freezing up on her, and since I hadn't cleaned the interior in quite some time, she decided she was going to do it. She opened it up and then blew it out with her own breath, instead of using canned air. Now when it restarts, Windows fails to boot. It gets to the Windows XP splash screen then automatically restarts. When it restarts, it goes to the safe mode menu. I have tried all the options, including the last known good configuration, but it does not boot. It gets to splash screen then restarts again. When I try to start normally, a BSOD appears for a split second before restarting. After repeated attempts, I was able to read the message on the BSOD. Apparently, the error is "unmountable boot failure". Anyone have any idea what is going on and how to fix, work around? I don't mind having to reformat, but I would like to save some of the files on the partition. Luckily, I have another PC in order to get online and find a solution!

[thoughtcrime]

So, my girlfriend calls me the other day and says that the PC was freezing up on her, and since I hadn't cleaned the interior in quite some time, she decided she was going to do it. She opened it up and then blew it out with her own breath, instead of using canned air. Now when it restarts, Windows fails to boot. It gets to the Windows XP splash screen then automatically restarts. When it restarts, it goes to the safe mode menu. I have tried all the options, including the last known good configuration, but it does not boot. It gets to splash screen then restarts again. When I try to start normally, a BSOD appears for a split second before restarting. After repeated attempts, I was able to read the message on the BSOD. Apparently, the error is "unmountable boot failure". Anyone have any idea what is going on and how to fix, work around? I don't mind having to reformat, but I would like to save some of the files on the partition. Luckily, I have another PC in order to get online and find a solution!

[PrntRhd]

Merged the two identical posts, we do read all the posts and it confuses members when they have to search for where they replied to help you.

[ski]

Make sure that the CD-ROM drive is configured ahead of the HD as a boot device in BIOS.
Start up with the XP CD inserted, and when you see the 'Welcome to Setup' screen, press the letter R.
Press the number for the boot HD(If there's just one HD installed, then press 1).
When prompted for the Administrator password, press Enter.
At the dos prompt type chkdsk /p and press Enter.
When that finishes type fixboot and press Enter.
Type Y and press Enter at the prompt.
Type exit and press Enter.
The system should now reboot into Windows.

If that does not work, then reboot to the Recovery Console like above.
Type chkdsk /r and press Enter.
When that finishes type exit and press Enter.

[thoughtcrime]

That did the trick. Thanks SOOO much. I was freaking out there for awhile!

[PrntRhd]

Glad that fixed it.

Good advice as always Ski.

[ski]

You're welcome.
Glad that you were able to get things fixed.

Thanks for the kudos, PrntRhd.
Sometimes I get lucky.