Need help with Windows blue screen of death
 

The back story:
I found a Dell Insperon 9300 in the trunk of a salavaged car. It is in the factory carton with all of the applications discs and a recovery disc.
Current problem:
While booting up it goes to a blue screen and tells me it has encountered an error described as "Unmountable_Boot_Volume".

I'd like to save any data that may be on the disc if at all possible.
Any suggestions on how to get beyond this?
TIA

Put the hard drive in another computer as the slave drive, but make sure your anti virus software is working.

Will it go to the screen where you can choose which drive to boot from? Boot from the disc drive and pop in the disc with the OS..... It will format the HD so no chance of recovery.... But you will get the damn thing working...

Not sure, how do I get to that point?

When you power it up one of the first few screens should say press F(most likely 11) for boot menu... Press w/e that button is... arrow down to the disc drive... pop in a disc and hit enter....

+1 ^^

My dell 1505 did that. Ended up getting the system CD's from dell. Works ok now, But still need the modem, and volume drivers.

F2 enters set up
set it to boot from disc.
will format disc and lose all current data (oh well probably for the better)
it's installing Windows right now
stay tuned

Provided all the hardware is properly functioning you are good to go now...

loaded 11% then went dark
plugged in ac and started over

I'm far from the expert, but the thing lived in a hostile environment before you got it. I'd be looking at a new HD. Like for like, I bet it's cheap.

I'm not sure what you mean, what do you think was a hostile enviroment?

It's still reformatting currently at 73%

Unless it was subjected to EMF or a serious shock it ought to be fine....

set up is now copying files 12%

The black helicopters will be circling your home any minute now. The CIA wants its computer back.

Don't abuse the tower while its running... If it was all packed up its *most likely* good to go...