Won't boot

[Guest]

1. System starts and posts message "disk read error on start up"
2. Can enter set up, can change settings, can run RAM memory test
3. System will not respond to A: drive, system will not respond to a USB
flash drive.

Any ideas??

 

[Mark Ritchie]

Does the system show your hard drive in setup?
If not you may have a loose cable inside your system. While you have it
open it's a good idea to make sure all cables and connections are good.
If you can see your hard drive in the bios(set up) then the next step would
be to put in your windows xp disk and start your system from that. Try
running the recovery console, can you see all of your data on the drive? If
you can your MBR maybe corrupt or damaged let us know.


--
Regards,

Mark Ritchie


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[Michael D. Alligood]

I researched my tech journal I keep and came across two solutions I
tried in the past the solved this issue. 1.) replace the HD IDE cable
2.) replace the hard drive.

Always try the easiest solution first. But a majority of read errors
with hard drives come from mechanical failure of some sort.

--
Michael D. Alligood
MCSA, MCDST, MCP, A+,
Network+, i-Net+, CIW Assoc.,
CIW Certified Instructor

 

[Guest]

Hi Mark- Cmos shows the HDD- CD drive not working either

 

[Guest]

I'm thinking maybe the MBR got corrupted, possibly a virus can't explain why
non of the drives are working POST gives me one short beep (for IBM BIOS this
means it got through POST) unfortunately my BIOS is Phenoix

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

Just because the BIOS sees your hard drive, that does not mean that you
do not have a faulty hard drive. If you think it is the file
system/structure, boot sector, or MBR try using the Recovery Console and
perform the following tasks:

Chkdsk /p
Fixboot c:
Fixmbr

And reboot.

--
Michael D. Alligood
MCSA, MCDST, MCP, A+,
Network+, i-Net+, CIW Assoc.,
CIW Certified Instructor

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

Is the CD-ROM and Hard drive on the same cable?

--
Michael D. Alligood
MCSA, MCDST, MCP, A+,
Network+, i-Net+, CIW Assoc.,
CIW Certified Instructor

 

[Guest]

No they are on seperate cables

Is the CD-ROM and Hard drive on the same cable?

--
Michael D. Alligood
MCSA, MCDST, MCP, A+,
Network+, i-Net+, CIW Assoc.,
CIW Certified Instructor

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

So to reiterate, your hard drive is giving you "read errors" and your
CD-ROM is not working; and they are both on separate IDE cables? Did you
CD-ROM issue start at the same time as the hard drive issue? If so, have
you considered your motherboard?

--
Michael D. Alligood
MCSA, MCDST, MCP, A+,
Network+, i-Net+, CIW Assoc.,
CIW Certified Instructor

 

[Ron Martell]

1. System starts and posts message "disk read error on start up"
2. Can enter set up, can change settings, can run RAM memory test
3. System will not respond to A: drive, system will not respond to a USB
flash drive.

Any ideas??

Identify the manufacturer of your hard drive, go to their web site,
and download their free diagnostic utility. Run this to check out the
hard drive for possible hardware faults.

If the drive passes the factory diagnostics then it is probably the
data structure of the drive that is damaged or corrupt, in which case
it might be fixable by booting to the Windows XP Recovery Console and
running CHKDSK /F

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."