"A Disk Read Error Occurred" Under Windows XP

[Rob]

I can't start windows xp professional. I'm getting a message stating
"'A Disk Read Error Occurred. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart". My hd is
a western digital wd2500jb. Their support site pointed towards the
bios or cable as a possible source, I changed the cable and reflashed
the bios, still no change. So I'm thinking I need to run chkdsk and
fixmbr. I have tried:

0. Attempted System Restore with the XP disk. The system gets hung
up (black screen) after it tells you to press a key to load from CD.
1. Loading KNOPPIX, did not work.
2. Loaded an old MEPIS I had around, worked and "mounted" the hard
drive (whatever that means) and I was able to navigate, but couldn't
do anything as I don't know much about LINUX. Is there anyway to make
use of this fact to fix the problem?
3. Attempted a Windows 2000 Emergency disk, booted to a black screen.
4. Attempted both Windows 98SE and Windows 95 bootable disks, did
work, but neither can see the hard drive (I'm guessing it is NTFS or
some other more advanced system). I was able to get the CD working
and was able to navigate the XP disk, but couldn't do anything as hard
drive is not being found.
5. WD diagnostic disk gets hung up and is useless. Begins to boot DR-
DOS then jams.
6. XP Quickboot Diskette from bootdisk.com (the image version) gets
DISK ERROR message.

I do have a 2000 computer to slave this drive to and recover data, is
there anyway to fix it from there?

Any other ideas?

 

[DL]

You might want to slave the hd and attempt to recover data before trying
anything else.

The WD utilities, this was a bootable floppy?
If you are sure the floppy is ok - try it on another PC - it might suggest
you have some other prob

 

[philo]

I can't start windows xp professional. I'm getting a message stating
"'A Disk Read Error Occurred. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart". My hd is
a western digital wd2500jb. Their support site pointed towards the
bios or cable as a possible source, I changed the cable and reflashed
the bios, still no change. So I'm thinking I need to run chkdsk and
fixmbr. I have tried:

0. Attempted System Restore with the XP disk. The system gets hung
up (black screen) after it tells you to press a key to load from CD.
1. Loading KNOPPIX, did not work.
2. Loaded an old MEPIS I had around, worked and "mounted" the hard
drive (whatever that means) and I was able to navigate, but couldn't
do anything as I don't know much about LINUX. Is there anyway to make
use of this fact to fix the problem?
3. Attempted a Windows 2000 Emergency disk, booted to a black screen.
4. Attempted both Windows 98SE and Windows 95 bootable disks, did
work, but neither can see the hard drive (I'm guessing it is NTFS or
some other more advanced system). I was able to get the CD working
and was able to navigate the XP disk, but couldn't do anything as hard
drive is not being found.
5. WD diagnostic disk gets hung up and is useless. Begins to boot DR-
DOS then jams.
6. XP Quickboot Diskette from bootdisk.com (the image version) gets
DISK ERROR message.

I do have a 2000 computer to slave this drive to and recover data, is
there anyway to fix it from there?

Any other ideas?

First , backup the data (if possible) on the other machine.

Now run the mfg's diagnosis on the drive...
if it's bad and still under warranty get an RMA for replacement...
otherwise...discard it!
There is not *reliable* fix for a bad HD!

 

[Rob]

I can't start windows xp professional. I'm getting a message stating
"'A Disk Read Error Occurred. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart". My hd is
a western digital wd2500jb. Their support site pointed towards the
bios or cable as a possible source, I changed the cable and reflashed
the bios, still no change. So I'm thinking I need to run chkdsk and
fixmbr. I have tried:

0. Attempted System Restore with the XP disk. The system gets hung
up (black screen) after it tells you to press a key to load from CD.
1. Loading KNOPPIX, did not work.
2. Loaded an old MEPIS I had around, worked and "mounted" the hard
drive (whatever that means) and I was able to navigate, but couldn't
do anything as I don't know much about LINUX. Is there anyway to make
use of this fact to fix the problem?
3. Attempted a Windows 2000 Emergency disk, booted to a black screen.
4. Attempted both Windows 98SE and Windows 95 bootable disks, did
work, but neither can see the hard drive (I'm guessing it is NTFS or
some other more advanced system). I was able to get the CD working
and was able to navigate the XP disk, but couldn't do anything as hard
drive is not being found.
5. WD diagnostic disk gets hung up and is useless. Begins to boot DR-
DOS then jams.
6. XP Quickboot Diskette from bootdisk.com (the image version) gets
DISK ERROR message.

I do have a 2000 computer to slave this drive to and recover data, is
there anyway to fix it from there?

Any other ideas?

After slaving the drive and copying the data, I ran WD diagnostics,
drive reported fine, but would not boot to either Win2000 or XP for a
re-install either via CD or disk. I ended up setting the drive up for
a Windows 98 install using the WD utilities, booting to a Windows 98
disk and from there installing Windows 98 via CD and upgrading to XP.
No other approach seemed to work.

 

[Plato]

I can't start windows xp professional. I'm getting a message stating
"'A Disk Read Error Occurred. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart". My hd is

A disk read error generally means you have bad sectors on your hard
drive that havn't been marked bad. Or, a failing hard drive.