Unmountable_boot_volume

R

Ron@RonPinkas.com

Junior Member
Build 1884 dated: Sep 5 2006
Mac Mini, Intel Core Duo, 1.66Ghz, 2GB, OS X 10.4.8.
Win XP (latest p;atches)

As of today, on startup, I keep getting a BLUE SCREEN which keeps disappearing very quickly back into the windows startup options, and so on, and so on. At the top of the BLUE SCREEN I can detect an error message:

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME.

I'm fairly new to macs, and so I didn't yet find a way to slow/freeze that screen so I could get the complete error information.

For what it's worth, my HD image appears to be fine, in that:

I'm able to run both the "Compact" option, as well as the "Disk tool" converter on that image withOUT any error.

Prior to this issue, the VM crashed once I attempted to open a Paralles Shared Folder in Explorer.

Since I have some critical unbacked data in that image I'll also appreciate any step by step detailed instruction on I may try to MOUNT that image under OS X so I may get access to my data.

Will greatly appeciate any help you may offer.

Ron
 
Hi All,

Quick Update:

I renamed a copy of my hdd image file to:

mydrive.dmg

and it mounted without any problem as a R/O NTFS image.

1. Is it possible to mount the 2nd NTFS volume that lives in that image?

2. Now that the image is readable, anybody knows how I may proceed trying to get this drive to boot again?

Thanks in advance,

ron
 
Whoa.

How did you get the initial image to mount? I though that the file format that Parallels uses is incompatable with Mac disk images.

I just tried renaming a NTFS formatted .hdd file (from WinXP) to .dmg and it would not mount.

Is this a static size or dynamic sized image?

As for your question: If you can get it to mount at all you should be able to see all the volumes in a DMG in the disk utility of Mac OS. There is also some lower level unix-y ways of mounting it...
 
unused_user_name said:
Whoa.

How did you get the initial image to mount? I though that the file format that Parallels uses is incompatable with Mac disk images.

I just tried renaming a NTFS formatted .hdd file (from WinXP) to .dmg and it would not mount.

Is this a static size or dynamic sized image?

As for your question: If you can get it to mount at all you should be able to see all the volumes in a DMG in the disk utility of Mac OS. There is also some lower level unix-y ways of mounting it...
Click to expand...

My experience shows you can ONLY mount fixed size image. This is not a problem because you CAN use the Parallel's ImageTool to convert [copy] an Expandanle Image into a Fixed Sizeded image.

Make sure to use "Get Info" to RENAME the extension, rather than inplace rename which might not reallt change the file extension.

As to the second NTFS volume in that image file, no I'm not able to see any hint of it's existance, but I know it's there.

Ron
 
Okay, after a bit of reasearch:

1) DMG does support multiple partitions. If you take a (mounted) DMG file in disk utility and select the Partition tab you can make more.
2) Disk Utility will automatically mount all partitions in a DMG.
3) DMG is supposed to have a header that includes a checksum of all the partitions and a listing of where they are.
4) This header seems to be optional, as the .hdd file used by Parallels does not have this information in it.
5) Aparently Disk Utility can mount the first partition without the headers, but requires the headers in order to find the second partition. (?? this is a guess ??)

What someone needs to do now is figure out the diffrence between a .dmg and a .hdd and write a converter that changes a file from one type to another... Or better yet: Parallels could write an extension to disk utility that would allow it to see .hdd files as another type of file container, in which partitions can hide. (Or they themselves could use .dmg files for the VMs, that would be cool)


My suggestion:
Get a real hardware external drive. (Perhaps you can excercise the return policy of some electronics store?) Use the unix command "dd" to copy the contents of the .hdd file to the real drive while the external drive is unmounted:
sudo dd if=/Users/myuser/myhdd.hdd of=/dev/my_usb_drive
To do this you have to figure out where your real drive shows up under /dev. DO NOT USE /dev/hda, as that is the drive you boot off of. Use this at your own risk.
 
Why not create a new .hdd, install a guest OS on it, and attach both the new one as a boot volume, and the old one as a second drive, and let parallels sort through the structural magic? Copy needed files from the old volume to the new one, then immediately shut down the guest and back it up. Then you can trash the old .hdd.
 
joem said:
Why not create a new .hdd, install a guest OS on it, and attach both the new one as a boot volume, and the old one as a second drive, and let parallels sort through the structural magic? Copy needed files from the old volume to the new one, then immediately shut down the guest and back it up. Then you can trash the old .hdd.
Click to expand...

Thanks, the quick answer is I was trying to avoid the time investment into making new XP installation, and having to sort through the files needed to be copied, reinstall all applications, etc..

The good news, is that I did found this:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=297185&sd=RMVP

Followed the directions and my HD appears fully functional again.

Thanks,

Ron
 
I must apologize, after recovering the hdd file, I realized that this image had only 1 volume. My second volme was set up as another seperate hdd file.

I do NOT know if the .hdd file can or can not publish more than 1 volume when opened as a .dmg file, but I feel I had to correct my wrong previous report.

Ron
 
Now that you have it working, why not make a backup of the .hdd so that if it happens again, you will have a bootable drive you can use to investigate problems?

Note: this advice is intended for everyone -- when you get it working, back it up. Backups have saved my bacon more times than I can count.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top