My mouse is really old, so I decided to switch it with a different that I have, and I did this while the computer was on. When I plugged in the new mouse, the computer froze up so I restarted it. When I tried to start up windows XP I got an error message saying something about unplugging the new hardware and restarting it. I did what it said, but it came up again. It said that if I saw the message more than once to start up in safe mode and dissable BIOS and caching or something along those lines. I didn't try to start up in safe mode, but booted up windows 2000 that I have running off my C drive (windows XP is on the D drive). I went into my computer and tried to go into D drive, but it took about 45 seconds (along with my computer making a lot of noise) to bring up a message that said the D drive wasn't formatted, and asked me if I would like to format it. I selected no, and right clicked on the D drive and after a wait, I went to properties and it said that it had 0 bytes used and 0 avaliable. I then checked out the E drive (which is a partition of the D drive) and it was working fine, which I found really weird. What have I done? Is there any way to fix this without formatting the drive?

I just looked at it again and it said UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME.

Not good...

here is some information...

http://www.techtips4u.com/kb/sw/SW00014.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...b;en-us;Q297185

Kind of a long shot, but can you hit F8 and get the XP boot menu? Then do "last known good configuraion".

Worth a shot?

I restarted with the XP cd and went into the recovery prompt. It asked me which windows I would like to do, and only gave me the option of C:/WINNT, nothing about the D drive. Last known good configuration didn't work either. If I have to format it, it's not a big deal, most of my stuff is on the C drive, but I'd rather not format 'cause I've got some stuff I want to save thats on there. Is there any way to save that stuff before I format?

Start the install of XP. The very first time you are presented with a repair option, don't. After is detect XP, THEN do the repair. This should leave all of your settings and installed programs, but you will have to install all of the updated again.

There was only one chance for me to go to the repair option, and after I passed it, it brought up an option to choose which partition I wanted, and I went to D, but it said it had to be formatted and gave me three options to format it, but I just quit.

Means your partition is toast. Go to http://www.bootdisk.com and make a bootdisk (floppy) with fdisk.exe on it. Boot it, and at the DOS prompt, type fdisk D: /mbr

If that don't work, then you will have reformat it. Good luck bud!!

Boot CDs are on my first link

This is what I downloaded, is it what I want?

Winxp_en_pro_bf.exe

Boot disk for Windows XP Pro. To use it download the file to your hard drive, make sure you have 6 blank floppy disks ready then double click on the file to make a boot disk set. ** THIS FILE WILL NOT WORK FOR WINDOWS XP HOME **

Formats: .exe ** Takes 6 floppies to make boot disk set **
Last updated: May 21, 2002.

I tried this, went to the first repair option, and D drive still wasn't acessible. Should I ignore the first fix, and wait for a second after it detects XP?

DOS Boot Disk

It said Invalid Drive Selection or something along those lines

Edit: That happened when I only put in D: /mbr, I forgot fdisk.

But when I did it with fdisk I got

Parameter format not correct - D: