# Unusual DMBOOT Problem



## slemaker (Aug 25, 2005)

I am getting the Event ID 3 dmboot error:

"Failed to start volume Volume1 (D"

where D: is neither my system nor my boot drive. Because this does not exactly match the circumstances described in the MS article, "System or Boot Disk Listed as Dynamic Unreadable in Disk Management", I am a bit leery of performing the fix described in that article.

Here is what Disk Manager shows for my system. Note that there are TWO separate entries for the physical disk I have lettered D:

Disk0 basic - IBM_Preload (C, FAT32, healthy (system); IBM_Service [no drive letter], FAT32, healthy

Disk1 dynamic - NewD (D, NTFS, healthy

Disk2 basic - Disk2 (G, NTFS, healthy

Missing dynamic - failed

The main paging file and most applications reside on D: and all are working just fine.

The article mentions three registry entries and values they should be set to to fix the problem (to fix the particular problem they describe):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\...\dmboot start: 0
(ditto) \dmio start: 0
(ditto) \dmload start: 0

My registry shows 0x4 for the dmboot start and 0 for both the others.

I am, incidentally, running on Win2000 Pro and the disks are SCSI.

Any suggestions? Would it be safe to change the dmboot start value to 0 considering that my problem does not involve my boot disk?

Thanks in advance for your help.


----------



## Sparty (Jul 12, 2007)

Slemaker,

I realize this is a pretty old post, but did you ever find a solution to your problem? I am having the EXACT same issue.

Thanks.


----------



## carroll (Oct 20, 2004)

Hi Sparty -

I am no longer getting the dmboot error but, unfortunately, a lot of water has passed over the dam since 2005 and I have forgotten what I did to get rid of it. I thought that perhaps I had changed the dmboot start entry in my registry to 0, as mentioned in my 2005 message, but I just checked and it is still 0x4. Also, my physical disk #1 ("D") still has the dual personality (as shown in Disk Manager), so, I have no idea how I eliminated the error message.

If you can afford the time and effort, the best way perhaps is just to make a complete backup of the corresponding disk, delete the "missing dynamic offline" device shown in Disk Manager, reformat and remount the disk, and restore from the backup. Depending upon what's on that disk you might have to reinstall some apps.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help, and good luck.

Carroll


----------



## carroll (Oct 20, 2004)

PS -

It is just possible that deleting the "missing ..." entry in Disk Manager might, by itself, clear up the problem. I considered that but never tried it for fear that I might end up having to reinstall everything on that disk.

Carroll


----------



## Sparty (Jul 12, 2007)

Hi Carroll,

Thanks for your reply. I did end up fixing this yesterday morning. I did a complete backup first. Then I decided to just wing it and try to delete the missing dynamic disk. It apparently worked, since the error went away, and I have yet to see any negative effects. A much easier solution than reformatting and restoring ... but then again, maybe I just got lucky 

Adam


----------

