Unmountable Disc Volume - Windows 10

[#1]

Update
Part way through sorting it
The disk is in such a mess that it is unsortable - will order a new 1TB disk tomorrow although before doing that I will consider a reformat of the existing disk or at least a full disk scan to see how bad it is
Thank goodness for Ubuntu
Downloaded the latest Ubuntu CD and after a bit of googling used the command line to mount the disk in read only form and am now copying the user documents to my computer over the network

[#2]

while you have it mounted check the smart stats of the disk, if it shows anything more than 1 error its trashed and a reformat will only hold it for a short time before it does the same thing again /

[#3]

while on the subject - are all the 2.5" drives now shockproof and is there a preferred brand as compared to standard disk drives where I have my own preferences

[#4]

I don't think any of the hdd's are shockproof, most of them have a 'g' rating but if the laptop is likely to suffer impact whilst in use it would be better to get an ssd and something like the transcend storejet usb3 military grade external drive (Amazon have them in 1tb for around £50 and 2tb around £90) and besides having good reviews I gave one to my youngest 2years ago and despite regularly getting bashed about whilst running it still seems to be running fine with zero errors reported under smart or chldsk

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00K087BM2?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_sfl_title_8&smid=A3P5RO...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005MNGQ6C?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_sfl_title_2&smid=A3P5RO...
links added

[#5]

Although the test showed as OK the number of unrecoverable sectors was rotten so I think a new disk is called for - only need to check the thickness of the existing one - 9.5mm  or 7mm
Note I don't want an external hard drive and an SSD would be prohibitively expensive

[#6]

I picked up a 160Gb SSD for a little over 40 (+vat) from a non-auction online retailer just the other week.
They're not as expensive as they used to be.

[#7]

Except I need a 1TB one and they are

[#8]

then you might want to consider one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Momentus-STBD1000400-Internal-Inches/dp/B00BSH3CCC/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UT...
generally reviews are good across multiple sites which could put the OS +programs on the ssd and the data in the hdd
to be totally honest something with a decent 'g' rating will be around the same price as an ssd in the same size, most of the drives that claim to have a good impact rating are basing it around the external enclosure which absorbs most of the impact instead of it hitting the drive directly.
since your saying an external is out of the question then hybrid could well be the answer to your needs of ocurse if the drive's estimated lifespan being under 5 years isn't a concern then theres any number of cheap ones you can get for under £50 at 5400rpm but many of them have high failure rates without mistreatment.
if its likely to be suffering a lot of shocks whilst in use then it might be better to go with a smaller ssd (250gb) and use online storage for the bulk of whats required day to day, plenty of cloud providers offering decent ammounts of storage, one even offers 1tb for free with a software package at around £70/yr ....

[#9]

Quote from: Oldjim

Except I need a 1TB one and they are

Really???  How much free space is left on the existing hard drive.  I bought a 240GB SSD for £50 recently - a Bank Holiday special offer from Dabs.  Anyway, SSDs run so much faster than a typical electro-mechanical hard drive that I think it is worth going to some pains to use one, like moving some of that presumed 950GB of data to external hard drives.

[#10]

The 500GB one is almost full - mostly role playing games games as far as I can tell
Anyway it is now ordered for delivery on Friday
Let us hope I can fit it and get Windows working without problems

[#11]

As you may have gathered, I am very taken with SSDs.  So often these days it's the rate of data transfer to/from the hard drive that seems to be the rate-limiting and so performance-limiting step.

[#12]

Which is where the sshd's come into their own, being the best of both worlds giving the performance required and the storage desired at a price that is affordable in a single drive laptop
Desktop I wouldn't touch one mind you but that's personal thing rather than a technical thing. That and I dislike Seagate drives having had so many failures that they refused to replace despite being in warranty and having been used correctly, on the grounds that the drives they sold with a premium price tag specifically for NAS usage weren't meant to be used in an actual nas box......

[#13]

I Know SSHD's are supposed to give you the best of both worlds but I have read mixed reviews.  And presumably they combine the failure mechanisms of both SSDs and conventional hard drives. 

[#14]

final update 1TB drive fitted and Win 10 installed with automatic activation - just copying the files across from my computer
This may be normal now or it may be the way the Billion works but the Win 10 system could see all the shared files without logging into the workgroup

[#15]

Did you change the default workgroup on your pc?
I did find w10 asked about networks during setup and auto joined everything that I was logged into and could see everything my login had permission to see once the account was fully synchronized