A disk read error occurred

D

Dimitri

Member
I turned my computer on and it said:

"A disk read error occurred
Press ctrl alt delete to restart"

The previous shut down was perfectly orderly, no sign of anything being wrong.

What do I do from here? If I can't access my data I'm gonna jump outta the window, I've not done a backup in ages and I really need this stuff or I'm toast.

EDIT:

I did some googling and some sources are recommending solutions using various CD based recovery tools, but I don't have a CD drive in my computer and I wonder whether there's an tools I can put on my flash drive.

EDIT 2:

BIOS doesn't even see the HDD. What could be going on? Is there ANY hope of saving ANY data from the HDD? I'm really gonna kill myself if I can't get this data back!
 
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Sounds like the drive took a crap on you. If you aren't capable of diagnosing you may have to take it in. Do you have another system to test the drive in?
 
johnb35 said:
Sounds like the drive took a crap on you. If you aren't capable of diagnosing you may have to take it in. Do you have another system to test the drive in?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm in the process of doing that. I put it into another computer and turned it on and the computer started beeping in intervals, shows no image on the monitor. So I take my HDD out and put the one that was in previously back in and AGAIN the beeping.

And this is a computer that started up normally just 5 min ago. So I plug out ITS drive, too and turn it on with nothing but the CD drive connected and still the beeping.

So now I'm thinking, wtf, did my HDD somehow mess up this computer? So now I'm afraid to plug it into my third computer. Is it possible that it somehow messed that computer up or can I go ahead and try it in this third computer?
 
You might have to reset the cmos on the second computer to get it to work properly again. Every machine reacts differently when you add bad hardware to it. When you put the drive in the second machine did you bump anything in the process like ram or anything? I would remove and reinsert the ram sticks just in case.
 
johnb35 said:
You might have to reset the cmos on the second computer to get it to work properly again. Every machine reacts differently when you add bad hardware to it. When you put the drive in the second machine did you bump anything in the process like ram or anything? I would remove and reinsert the ram sticks just in case.
Click to expand...

I'm looking into that now. As far as I can see everything is sitting well in the socket, both the RAM and the cards. I tried unpugging the CD drive, nothing changes. I flipped the case over when I was putting my HDD in so maybe something got bump, but I don't think so.

I'll try reinserting the RAM sticks, even tho they seem to be inserted properly.

When you say reset the cmos, I don't know what that means. Is that something you do from BIOS? Because the monitor doesn't show any image so I can't access the BIOS. (EDIT: Oh, you're saying remove the MB battery? Will that screw anything up, would I have to adjust somethign in BIOS after that or just reinsert the battery)

Regarding the beeps, I'm trying to figure out what they are saying, but I keep getting different explanations of what they mean. This is a Gigabyte MB (don't know which model) and even a FAQ I saw on their site gives codes for finite beeps (up to 11 beeps) but mine gives continuous beep. Specifically it gives 3 beeps then a short pause and you hear a sound and then the beeps continue indefinitely.
 
Well, this is bizzare,

I removed one of the memory sticks and it works fine. But when I put hte stick back in the beeping starts up again.

I can't make heads or tails of this. Why would my putting this HDD in have somehow made it so that the computer won't start up any more when one of the sticks is inserted? I'm quite sure I didn't bump anything.

And more importantly, is it safe to try this busted HDD I have in my third computer or is it liable to induce some problems here, too?
 
If its just 3 short beeps and it repeats, thats a memory issue. Try removing and reinserting the memory first before removing the cmos battery for a few minutes. You may have to change the sata controller setting after resetting cmos.
 
That one memory stick is most likely bad you may have touched it and had static electricity on you that zapped it. You can try putting the drive in now and see what happens.
 
EDIT:

Well, now I put the HDD back in my computer and everything works fine. THen I put that RAM stick back into the other computer and IT works fine, too!

So the sum total of events is that I shuffled a HDD between two computers and took a stick in and out of one, for basically no reason.

Why the hell would this have happened?

OUTDATED:

Oh praise the Lord and Jesus and Everything, the HDD works! I don't have to kill myself.

So the question now is why won't my computer see my HDD?

I see certain recommendation on Google as to what to do that involves partition tables or things like that, but the trouble is my computer doesn't even detect the HDD in BIOS while the other computer starts entering windows normally.

Could it be the cabel???
 
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Does the computer work or not? Which computer can't see the hard drive? Your post is confusing.
 
Everything works now. The stuff under the heading EDITED in the previous post is the most recent state of affairs, the stuff under OUTDATED is previous state of affairs.

Meaning I've now reinserted the HDD into the original computer, which earlier didn't even see the HDD in bios and now it works normally. Furthermore, I've reinserted the troublesome RAM stick back into the second computer and IT now works perfectly fine as well, no beeping or nothing.
 
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