A disk read error has occurred ...

[opchiasm]

Thanks in advance for any help.

When I turned on my desktop PC this morning, I saw the Intel splash
screen, then nothing but a black screen indicating "A disk read error
has occurred. Press Ctl-Alt-Del to reboot."

My C: drive is only several months old, is defragmented weekly, and my
system had been working wonderfully, with no indication of any
imminent problem. I'm running XP Pro.

A couple of weeks ago, I did replace my video and sound cards, but the
machine had been running fine since then. I didn't do anything
significant to it over the weekend.

I'm thinking the C: drive has suddenly failed without warning, but was
hoping I could try other things before going through the hassle of
getting a new drive and reinstalling everything.

Thanks very much.

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...

My C: drive is only several months old, is defragmented weekly,
and my system had been working wonderfully, with no indication
of any imminent problem. I'm running XP Pro.

If you don't have ECC memory installed and enabled, a defrag is a
dangerous thing. It involves moving almost everything on the disk
through memory buffers, which have no error protection. A stray
cosmic ray (or other glitch) can cause total havoc, which doesn't
show up until much later.

I suspect your only hope will be a complete reinstall of
everything from original media. If my theory is correct, any
backups you may have are also suspect.

If you have ECC memory installed and enabled, this is all nonsense
and you have to look elsewhere. If not, and your MB has the
capability, I suggest you do so.