A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart
That’s as verbose as my computer would get. Restarting provided the same exact routine, and although I could access the BIOS - there was nothing there that could help me. My hard disk took a serious hit and I was down and out because of it. At this point in time I was working on an HP NC8430, but don’t be relieved - this could happen to any computer! These are some steps that I took, that you too could take in the event that you are finding a similar problem.
You should first think about the situation to determine if there is extensive damage to the drive itself. If you hear any sort of clunking, scratching, or screeching - I would highly suggest that you keep the computer and drive powered off until the exact point in time that you wish to recover the data - otherwise you may compromise it all. I knew that my computer had not been through any serious beatings, didn’t get bumped, dropped, or smacked. I did know that I had just restarted my computer and shortly before this point in time - installed some new software and Microsoft patches. I considered this to be a data issuse rather than a hardware issue, so I moved forward.
- Sometimes this type of thing can be remedied simply by re-seating the hard drive. Sounds difficult? It really isn’t. Each computer will be slightly different, but you should be able to find some instructions specific to your model by searching google. Even if you operate on a laptop, you can often remove just a few screws to access the drive with ease. When you have located the drive, you can simply pull the power and data cables from the drive - hold your nose for 10 seconds with your thumb and index finger, then reconnect the cables in the same fashion. Screw everything back together (optional - you may need to acess them again shortly) and then start your computer.
Perhaps you find that this fixes your problem - carry on and count yourself lucky. When you find that the above didn’t work, you can try step two.
- You need to go dig for your windows install disc - hopefully you have one! If not, borrow a friends - we are going to attempt a repair, NOT A REINSTALL, so you don’t have a licensing issue if your choose to borrow the media cd’s. Put the CD in the drive and then boot the computer and watch for the words ‘Press any key to boot from CD…’ in the upper left corner. When these words appear, press the key corresponding to the last letter in your first name and wait for the CD to do its magic. (If you don’t get these magical words, you may need to check your BIOS settings - search google for ‘bios boot sequence’ and adjust yours accordingly - most computers are set by the manufacturer in the proper fashion). Wait for the CD to do its thing - it will hopefully begin loading drivers and you should see a blue screen as it prepares. If you can see this screen - you may be in luck! Follow the prompts to REPAIR your windows installation. DO NOT INSTALL - unless you purposely intend to lose all your data. As my luck goes, this method did not work - I was instead faced with a perpetually black screen after booting to CD. A few words came to mind - none were kind.
Perhaps this fixes your problem - carry on and count yourself partially lucky. When you find neither of the above worked, continue to the next step.
- I’m not sure I am going to actually reccommend this as a step if the previous two have not worked for you. But if you have some geek in your blood, have another computer not far away, and you feel like it - you could try to load up knoppix. It could very well repair your OS. It’s worth a shot, but unlikely if the previous methods have not worked.
So, your still not recovered, this last step is the way you have to go - and the way I did go.
- Unfortunately for me, I had to take out the drive and connect it to a different computer in attempts to recover the data. Unfortunately for you, I suggest that it is time you did the same. I owned IDE converters but had not previously invested in SATA adapaters - so guess what, had to go to the store. If you find yourself in the same bind and without a secondary PC to attach to, your best bet is to go purchase a SATA to USB 2.0 adapater. I took a trip to a geeks delight (computers, cables, connectors, parts, and much more) just down the street and found the best deal (and easiest route) to be the SATA to USB2.0 connector. If this is beginning to scare you, don’t be scared. If you can remove your hard drive - you can make this work. Order up your new drive from your favorite vendor, then connect your old drive to your USB ports - copy over all the personal data. If you had a warranty plan of some sort, wipe off the original drive and send it back. If you didn’t have a warranty plan you could take the drive to a friends house to copy the data and then reformat it or else you just created yourself an external drive for that extra storage you’ve always wanted! The device is certainly handy, and I’m sure I’ll need it again some day. Here’s some pictures for you visually-stimulated folk:
That’s the best method for recovering your data in this type of situation. These instructions could also apply to a wide variety of error messages, this is just the particular instance I was faced with. If you are really lazy - send your drive out for someone else to take care of it - but this is the practical method.
Anyway - I am fully recovered from this incident and I have a brand new 100GB drive in my laptop to carry me over. In some ways, it was very nice to be able to wipe fresh and start clean while still recovering all of my important data. I just wish it were a little more timely. Darn computers are never very timely with their quirks.
Hello Reader, I’ve noticed that this has become one of the popular topics on SicklesInsight. Have you been helped by this? Do you have any comments to add? Please feel free!
Very nice article. Thank you.
i faced a Error message that A DISK READ ERROR HAS OCCURED while booting after the POST screen.
i have tried with changing the IDE cable but no solution then what may the issue??
Siva, try swapping out your hard drive. The data may still be recoverable, but you might not be able to boot to that disk any longer. I know this isn’t always something people have just laying around. If your computer is on any sort of warranty plan, you may be able to have one shipped to you. After the replacement (if it works) you can get your data off your old drive.
Jeff, I just want to thank you for the info on this page. I did try 1 step and it didn’t work for me. I’m a self taught novice when it comes to trouble shooting problems with pc’s. I’ve learned a lot from a few friends. With what i know i have help many people and have done so for free. My way of giving back. Many sites say that there fixes are free and i find that is not the case. Thanks for helping others so they can help the people who have no idea other than to turn it on.
dennis
Dennis, I’m glad to help - at least try to help. Sometimes when I come across these things, I like to document them so that other people who have similar issues can learn from my mistakes and experience. I also use this as a tool for myself and friends. As a “computer person” I’m often asked questions on various topics - I find it easy when things require in depth discussion to point people to my website and ask them to search for a particular keyword. I’m sorry the first step didn’t work for you - perhaps you can try the next step?
Hi,
In such a situation, trying to change the data cable, the IDE Cablefor teh HDD makes a lot of difference, if you have not tried that; i guess you must try that, the tiny most thing that can change the situation!!!
good luck….
Archi
Archi,
You are right - sometimes the cables need to be reseated or replaced. This is a great suggestion for preliminary troubleshooting!
Thanks for sharing,
Jeff
Hi.. am from norway så my english is noe that well..
But i tried to start all over again, and after i installed some things the message came up again.. så what shall i do??
thx all
In this case, the hard disk should be replaced!
Hey Jeff, thanks for the guide. But unfortunately I am having some problems. I got the same error as above and carried out following steps.
1) Install Ubuntu live CD and backup all data to an external. Since all info is backed up, I am happy, but now I am trying to fix the problem and get the desktop working.
2) Since my primary HD is from Seagate, I went to their site and downloaded the SeaTool and ran it on my desktop. According to SeaTool, there was nothing wrong with my HD.
3) I used Windows XP CD to repair.
4) I used Windows XP CD to reinstall.
All the above didn’t fix my problem. I really want to get my desktop back and working. Do you have any suggestion on what I can do to get it to work again?
Zythr,
Every situation is unique, and without being there to see yours, I can only make educated guesses. My first question would be this - when you say that you reinstalled and repaired - did you fully wipe the hard disk, go through the entire format and THEN install the operating system again? This can have a fully different effect than a reinstall or repair.
If you have done this already, you could try replacing the cables going to the hard drive - (not the power connection). Although I’ve seen this cause problems, if it persists - I would suggest replacing the hard disk too. Storage space is very cheap these days, so to avoid future headaches, possibly upgrade your available disk space, and to have a better feeling about tomorrow, consider buying a new drive online.
Let me know if any of this helps and what you end up doing!
Thanks,
Jeff
Hey Jeff, thanks for your help. I fix my problem, and I did the following in order to get it to work. Since I first thing I did was backup all my data using Ubuntu Linux live CD, I had no worries about losing my data. Secondly, I downloaded SeaTools and a test on my primary Segate hd. According to Seagate, I had no problems with my drive. So I put in a Windows XP CD and tried to repair the problem by doing chkdsk and /r and /p. Still that didn’t fix the problem. Then I did a reinstall of XP making sure to keep the file structure intact so I won’t lose my data. That alos didn’t fix the problem.
The last resort I came to is to update my BIOS version. Intel offered two methods to update my BIOS: 1) Experess update in Windows 2)Use a floppy drive to update BIOS. Since I couldn’t access Windows in order to do the express update I had to try to update using a floppy disk. But I couldn’t get this to work correctly.
Then I opened up my desktop and removed the cables from the HD and reconnected them to see if it still worked. Still I had no luck. Then finally I removed my primary HD and switched it with my secondary hd. I did a complete reformat and installed fresh copy of Windows XP on my secondard hd which was my primary now. I was able to get back into Windows. Then, I went to BIOS and tried to boot from my secondary (my primary before) first. The error poped up again. So I went back into Windows and updated my BIOS. I retested my secondary hd to see if it works and it was perfectly working.
So I am guessing, all I had to do all along was to update my BIOS.
That doesn’t inherently make sense, but perhaps your bios was changed by accident prior to the situation knowingly or not? Either way - I’m glad it works for you!
Thanks alot for the help Jeff. Oh also I read somewhere on another form that if you do a fresh install of XP and format it using NTFS, your most likely to get this problem. Throughout the years, I always used to reforamt my PC with the CD that came with the desktop. But for the first time 2 months ago, I reformated using the Windows XP CD using NTFS.
i hav a problem too
but dat messg comes not while starting up, but only 20 minutes aftr i strt the computer.
it is a clinking, or scratching noise
can u help
1 more thing, i had a problem before{ KERNAL _DATA_INPAGE_ERROR}
i reinstalled{i dont kno if its reinstal or format. i put my WINDO’S cd& did it}, this was done only for the C-DRIVE
sorry my computer knowledge is vry little
thank u
Adhi,
Any clinking or scratching from a hard disk is immediate bad news! I would suggest nothing other than running the computer for as short a time as possible. During this time, backup your data in short bursts - save off the most important data first! The lifetime left on your drive may be very limited. Purchase a replacement hard drive and reload your operating system and data.
I know this is a lot of work - but storage space is really cheap these days and it would be best for you to save your data now while it is still available instead of risking the possibility of losing it all or paying large fees for data retrieval. I like to buy from newegg.com - good deals on many computer components.
Go buy a hard disk and good luck!
thank u vry much MR Jeff
i have a problem too, i just formated my new computers hard disk and now i get this error when my windows installer wants to restart and continue with installing.
Mikk, did you get this resolved?
Do you think you might have received a bad drive? Is your computer booting to the correct drive?
Jeff
Hi, I ran into the same problem twice, about a year ago and last month again. Nothing worked and de XP setup CD does not start. Both times the only, but rather quick, solution was to copy the entire disk to another disk (used Ghost for that) which takes about 15 minutes for my 200GB disk.
After that I changed the disks and the system boots as usual….
The only thing that keeps me busy is: WHY?
Hope this procedure can help someone else.
Dennis
Hi Jeff. This may sound odd, but thank you for having this happen to someone that was good enough to post it on the internet. I have 3 computers, 1 laptop, 2 desktops. I just bought the laptop off Ebay and it’s been working fine till a week ago. I bought a 1 gig flash drive to move some college assignments to the laptop (I bought the laptop to use exclusively for my online college classes. After connecting the flash drive to laptop for an hour or so, the laptop stopped working. The desktop I copied the files from worked great. I restarted the laptop and the OS (as well as everything else) was gone. It gives me an error about inserting the system disk (which I don’t have since I bought it used). The laptop supposedly had a new hard drive just installed. When I put the flash drive into the desktop that I have been using for school, my internet connection would disappear. I don’t mean disconnect, I mean the network connection was gone. I would pull out the flash drive, restart the desktop and it would be fine. I stopped using the flash drive a few days back, and the desktop has been fine. Starting this morning, my desktop gives me the error message “A disk read error occurred, press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart”. I unplugged all the connections inside and reconnected them. Went into the Bios several times, used the CD that came with the hard drive (Maxtor)and checked out the Maxtor (now Seagate) website for help. Downloaded the diagnostic tools but they will not loadup on the computer. I realized my last move was to reformat the drive, but I am hoping I can still recover most of my data. I feel so much better after seeing your posting here. I’m going to get a new drive and see if I can save the data (I hope mine works like yours did). I’m still curious though as to where this problem came from and did it transfer to my computers through that flash drive. I’ll keep you posted. Thank you again for posting this on the net, I was about to tear my hair out and toss both computers in the driveway (not really, but the thought was appealing). Thank you again for giving me hope again.
Tina
Tina,
Thanks for sharing! I hope you have success with the data recovery - let me know how that pans out for you and if you need any more help! More than likely something became corrupted, and most likely independent of the flash drive.
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
I just want to thank you for saving my daughters life (or at least kept her away from greater suffering /me too). She baught her first own notebook some weeks ago and I helped her to migrate all her important data (years of music, videos, pictures). Unfortunately she hadn’t made a backup and received this disk read error message than. I had to explain to her that we could get a new hard drvie from the company she baught the notebook from using the warranty but all data would be lost. To avoid her suicide I searched the web for a solution but the only one which really helped in the end was the final step you described.
So I baught the SATA-USB adapter removed the hard drive and could save all data to my external hard drive. Then I plugged in the hard drive to use the warranty but to my surprise I could boot. But after that nothing was working even the mouse couldn’t be moved. So I used step two of you decription and used the windows repair disc and everything turned into “normal” working. Thanks again for this article. Bernd
Bernd,
I’m so glad that this helped you! Technology can be our greatest friend and at other times our worst enemy! I’m also glad she had the warranty - you just never know. At least the important data was saved off! Thanks for the note.
Jeff
Okay, Okay…
When it comes to computer’s I wouldn’t discribe myself as a novice…
I had an activation issue and had to reformett my computer 3 times in 3 months… (Every 3 months)
I wass halfway through installing a new version of windows off a damaged disk and it improperly installed my system files…
I get this message aswell…
Ive managed to reconnect my cd drive (Dont ask me how) and its once again reading disks…
So, I think GREAT I FIXED IT!!
The thing is after prepping the system for a destructive reformat (As nothing else on the disk helped) it merely restarts and once again starts to prep the system for reformatting… Over and over and over…
If I dont hit the key when prompted it coomes up with “A disk error occured press ctrl+alt+del to continue” or ssomething…
I do and it just keeps going round… And round…
Ive tried re-sitting the Hard-disk and fear I may have reinstalled my hardware incorrectly…
Do you have any advice?
Im not bothered about losing data…
I just want my desktop back… o.o
Hi Jeff, amazed by your comprehensive article, and at the same time depressed by my plight.
I just installed a brand new 80 GB HDD to be my new System drive - Run off that and leave my 320 GB as Storage.
But….Disaster struck!
I installed windows XP from my CD onto my new HDD, as it should, and advanced to the reboot stage.
At the reboot I got the Disk Read Error message.
Now, I am thinking, what a good thing it is that I, still have the other copy of XP on the 320 GB HDD, but after switching the HDDs back out, the message still comes. And comes some more, even after using two of my friends’ HDDs.
I have tried reloading the defaults of the BIOS, repairing windows (it won’t recognize that it is already installed) and switching the cables.
The only thing I haven’t switched is the motherboard, and I’m getting scared.
You sound like you know everything… can you tell me what to do? Please?
hi Jeff, Today i got a weird blue screen of death, and when i restarted my computer it gave me the disk read error. My hard drive doesn’t make any odd noises while it’s in operation. I have already moved all my ” want to keeps” to another drive. I formatted the HD to install a new windows xp on there but when the blue screen setup was finished and proceeded to boot up it got the error again. I even tried using another empty drive with a new installation of winxp but i am constantly getting the same error. I am stuck on what to do at this point. If you could shed some light on my dilemma it be super ^^ thanx again for looking over my post ^^.
Hey dude I was just wondering if in case the drives get formated, will only the drive c get formatted as it is the main one holding all the software? I have three hard disks and drives E and F have only my personal files, documents and data. Whats the risk of losing al of it in case something happens to the drives? Plus , what is the main cause of this kind of error?If I hand it over to a professional, what will he do to it?
Thanks a lot.
Aby, DXB.
Bong,
Do some research on Master Boot Records. Sounds like you might have an issue there. Your data is no doubt still recoverable if you insert this disk as a secondary disk. You should be able to browse through it just fine.
Kent,
Are you sure you aren’t using a bootleg copy of windows? Second to that do you get any install errors when you are trying to install the OS? It seems that some critical files are either missing or corrupt. You might also try running a full check disk to see if it finds any issues.
Aby,
Hard disk errors happen. I don’t have the statistics on this sort of thing. If formatting, you have the option to choose which disk or disks will be formatted or where you will install or reinstall and operating system. A professional should be able to handle that in just the same way. As far as the risk of losing data. ALWAYS back up the data that is most valuable to you. It doesn’t always make sense to back up all of your data - but you might want to get in the habit of regularly storing your data off to an external or secondary disk as starters. If you have more sensitive information, back up more frequently and consider keeping the backups offsite so as not to be destroyed by flood fire or theft. I hope that helps!
The first thing you should do is try a different IDE cable. If that doesn’t work try changing the jumpers or slave the drive to recover the data on it. After you have retrieved your data you can then try to delete the partition and reformat the disk.
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You better study your fridge for pork! This swine flu outbreak is geting sombre! My neighbor came rear from Meixo city and is geting sick! Meticulous of her to forewarn everyone in the neighborhood!
You better learning your fridge against pork! This swine flu outbreak is geting life-and-death! My neighbor came back from Meixo suburb and is geting sick! Fastidious of her to alert person in the neighborhood!
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