How to Fix Unmountable Boot Drive If Your CD-ROM Drive Isn't Working

My Gateway MX6421, just out of warrantee of course crashed last week. I couldn't get passed the error message that my Gateway had suffered an "Unmountable_Boot_Drive". The thing just cycled through as if Windows was going to open at any moment, and then the error message would come up, over and over. Adding to the problem, I couldn't even attempt System Restore as my CD ROM Drive was not working, so I couldn't use the required disk. I thought about an external CD ROM drive but didn't want to spend the money if that wouldn't fix the problem. I called Gateway; they wanted me to sign up for their phone technical support at a minimum charge of $129. I asked about getting a new CD ROM drive and was told that Gateway doesn't sell the part; I had to go through a company whose name I can't recall. The company could sell me the replacement internal CD ROM Drive but it didn't come with any directions and I'd have to pay support to help me install the thing. I had a local computer shop look at it and they told me the computer was dead, buy a new one. I asked the guy if he could use an external CD ROM Drive and he told me that didn't work because the computer couldn't recognize the external drive. He actually told me it was the motherboard and wasn't worth fixing. I read everything online I could find, and there is plenty! Unmountable_Boot_Drive is apparently a fairly common problem and there are hosts of people trying to fix the problem. As a complete "untechie", I was getting depressed and desperate. I needed to get back to my writing and can't work without the computer. Buying a new computer was completely out of the question, not in the budget.

As I was reading the online information about the Unmountable_Boot_Drive error, I noticed that other people had the problem of a non-working CD ROM Drive. There were no answers for us. I'm writing this in hopes that someone else will be saved the time and depression and frustration that I experienced. This is what I did to solve the problem. I went to Best Buy and talked to a kid working there. I asked about an external CD ROM drive and was honest about my problem and reason for the purchase. He told me any of the external models in the store would work and then recommended the LG 18x External Super Multi DVD Rewriter. It's CD/DVD, does it all model. The cost was $89 and he told me I could bring it back for a full refund within 30 days, with the receipt if it didn't work out. I then took the external drive home, plugged it in to my laptop and put the system restore disk in the drive. Important to note, I did not even try to install the software for the external drive. It made no sense to try so I just didn't bother. I turned on the laptop and pressed F11 to go into System Restore mode, and sat back and waited. It totally worked, the system restored and I was back in business. I couldn't believe it worked. Another important and maybe meaningless note, three times during the system restore process, my computer shut down and shut off. Maybe it makes no sense, but I thought that maybe it was timing out because of the old screensaver setting. So, I kept the mouse moving through the entire process such to try and prevent a shut down. That worked and the restore went through completely.

I'm now backing to work, though my internal CD ROM drive still isn't functioning. Not sure if I'll return the external drive yet. I'm going to try and fix the internal drive myself and decide later.