Unmountable boot volume - but the only thing I changed is ram

Has anyone heard of new memory causing this error? It sounds like it's the kind of thing a corrupted hard disk or bad install of Windows would cause - not RAM. If you've read my other topics here, you know I'm trying to get a 2005 Dell Optiplex GX280 up to speed to be my parents' primary PC. Today I put in a Nvidia Geforce GT 430, which is working out to be a great improvement over the Intel GMA and went fine - and some RAM, which I think may have jacked it up.

The machine previously had a single 512MB DDR2 400mhz stick, which I yanked out and replaced with two 1GB DDR 533mhz sticks. I had it set up single channel at first, went into the BIOS and saw the system recognized the 533mhz speed and the full 2gb of memory. Looked good to go, I exited and continued bootup - midway trough the Windows XP booting screen I got a BSOD telling me unmountable boot volume. Thinking it was a fluke I rebooted, same thing. I put the ram in again as dual channel, same thing.

Frustrated, I went upstairs to do some research, then came back to find the PC booted into Windows just fine, seeing all the memory, etc. A few more reboots and it all seemed fine. Then another reboot gave the same error.

Any idea why this may be happening?

Windows XP SP3
A08 rev (latest one) of the machine specific version of Phoenix BIOS

 

Bad RAM. Try MemTest86+ on it for about 8 hours.

 

Wouldn't bad ram just not boot at all?

 

No, depending the problem with the ram. Most computers boot with defective ram but experience random problems. Remember when programs execute they are not always using the same bits in ram. You may experience problems such as a freeze on boot, screen pixelization, just about any software problem you can imagine or if the particular bits of defective ram are not accessed during the boot the system may boot fine but not run once the defective part of the ram is accessed.

 

Yep, I agree. Your best (=quickest) course of action would be to return both your RAM sticks, and replace them with new ones. Alternatively you can boot with just one and then the other to see which one might be bad, and replace just the one that is giving you trouble. If both do, then the RAM you are using may not be compatible with your motherboard. Get different RAM then.

 

I'll try MemTest86+ first if I can find a floppy disk anywhere. Will it tell me which bank the stick with bad bit/s is in, or will I need to remove one and test them individually?

Might be a fool's errand anyway. The sticks came together in a 2gb kit from newegg. Do I need to RMA through newegg, or crucial directly?

 

Also could the problem be the rom not being securely "in there" in the DIMM? It felt a little weird going in and I really had to force one of them to get the clasp to lock.

 

8 hours of MemTest86+ with 11 passes found 0 error

hm