Unmountable_boot_volume

suddenly when I turned my computer (laptop) this evening I got a blue screen with the above written on it, I've not installed any new hardware or software which seemingly could be the cause of the problem. It suggests pressing F8 on start up, which I've done and tried each and every startup option, but the blasted blue screen keeps coming up!!!!!!!!!!

The technical information shown at the bottom of the screen is:
STOP: 0x000000ED (0x8279EC30, 0xC0000006m 0x00000000m 0x00000000)

I've put in the Windows XP CD, press f8 a few different start up options but none of them work either - have seen online that checkdsk can work but how can I get a screen into which I can type this command??????????
appreciate any help......

completely bewildered!!!!!!!!!!

all that I can find out strange that happened was that the last person to use the computer pushed the power switch to turn off the computer w/o going through the proper shutdown method

having a look at the , their recommendation seems to be to run chkdsk /r from the recovery console.. Good Luck !!

Lorraine that happened my pc from exactly the same cause(not following the shut down procedure) try pressing Ctrl+F11 that will bring you to the full system restore,however you lose everything and will have to do all your m.soft patches again.

try this.

[broken link removed]

thanks guys! up and running again - thank God! when trying to reload one of the Dell CD's named applications - it looked for a 'Dell System' hilarous really as it is a Dell laptop!

all okay but I have no sound - no audio sound device - how do I get over this, can I download drivers from the Dell website but I don't know what I need,

Running and loading really quickly - I expect wiping everything got rid of all the rubbish as well as the good stuff.

Thanks for help.

You should be able to get all up to date drivers etc. for your system from Dell.