Error when booting up

Calibretto

Calibretto

VIP Member
Whenever I boot up my PC, sometimes this shows up: "A Disk Read Error Occured. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to Restart"

I would keep doing that until my PC finally reached the log in screen
 
That's usually a goof of the boot files and information if the data cable for the drive doesn't need replacing or the drive itself is showing signs olf wear. For XP you simply boot with the installation disk upto the recovery console to enter the Fixboot and Fixmbr commands after logging onto the current installation of Windows there to see the boot information rewritten over.

If you are running an ide type hard drive you may have to simply replace the flat ribbon cable it that is dryed up and stiffening up on you. If the case hasn't been cleaned in any lengthy period of time you'll want to grab a can of air cleaner while trying a different ide cable since dust buildups will cause probelms at times.
 
All those do is rewrite the boot information. That's a quick way to see any loss or corruption of the boot entries corrected for XP.

Even without any problems that won't effect anything else on the drive since something like erasing a drive requires a drive tool for either reformatting or simply deleting an existing partition. The idea here is to see if a quick fix of the mbr entries will see everything back to normal or if another error is seen.

That would point to something like a missing ntldr file whicj can also be repaired by manually expanding the file from the XP cd's I386 folder at the recovery console's command pronpt if needed. That will save on the need for a repair or even full reinstall of Windows if all goes well. For the most part it's usually only one small thing that see this type of problem like corruption of boot files or some boot information simply lost.
 
So I went into the recovery console and chose the C: drive and then I had to enter in the administrator password. What is it? I've never setup a password for anything in Windows.
 
voyagerfan99 said:
Then there isn't one. Just press enter when the password comes up.
Click to expand...

I did that and it still didn't work BUT, I edited some values in the registry and made it so that it doesn't ask for a password.

So I used the fixboot and fixmbr commands and it seems to be booting fine now.
 
That saves a repair install of Windows since it was only a small problem with the boot sector. You can often use that method if you start seeing disk read errors where the problem is small.

For more involved problems you then have to start looking at things like a bad cable, corrupted or accidently removed boot files, or even a problem being seen with the drive itself. If you want to see Windows load directly to the desktop without constantly having to select a single account(admininstrator) every time you start the system up You can edit the registry a second time to simply add two string values.

First you open up the HKey_Local_Machine>Software hive and proceed to microsoft>Windows NT>current version>Winlogon to add htem in there. You simply choose the edit dropdown on the menu bar and click new each time for the AutoAdminLogon and DefaultPassword entries.

While the AutoAdminLogon is highlighted click the modify option in the edit menu and enter "1" for a value. The other is left blank so no password is determined. Once you restart the system again Windows will load straight up without the user account delay already logged on as admin. This only works when there is one one original account created.
 
yeah so I booted up my PC this morning and it was giving me the same error again!! I finally got to the login screen and my resolution dropped to 800x600 for some reason. I found out that my video drivers magically uninstalled themselves. WTF?????? I'm seriously gonna punch someone.....lol
 
You were seeing the default Windows vga drivers being loaded. Your problem seems to have been the version of drivers installed or were corrupted somehow as well as the boot information. You may want to run a few scans with antivirus and spyware remover type programs to see if something got on the drive there as a precaution.
 
For the last and latest 169 release for the 7000 series models for XP is found at http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_169.21_whql.html That was according to the 7900GT model card listed in your sig.

For a free online scan of the system Trend Micro's "HouseCall" is one that gets good reviews. http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

If you are not currently running any antivirus protection Trend Micro's retail software bundles adware and spyware removers plus IE protection in with their own antivirus software. For a few free alternatives Grisoft's AVG 7.5 is the free version of their retail software that will often catch trojans and trojan downloaders as well as viruses. http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5#avg-anti-spyware-free

While you are there grab the Antirootkit utility since that offers a degree of protection for the boot sector. The antispyware program there is the somewhat updated version of Ewido now owned by Grisoft.

For active protection around the system registry as well as a spyware/adware remover a better program is found in Spyware Terminator. http://www.spywareterminator.com/

If you go to reinstall Windows for some reason or are installing Windows fresh like on a new drive or build put that one on last! That will prompt you with the "allow or deny" as much as the User Account Control now seen in Vista even if you are removing some program! It wraps itself around the registry to alert you on just about everything.
 
I ran a couple of scans. I then restarted my computer. It booted up fine. The next morning when I went to turn on my computer it started again!
 
umm What type of hdd are u using is it ide like pceye stated change the ribbon cables. and also maybe the hdd is failing. if u have a spare try installing an os on it and runnin it for a couple days to see if u get same error, or if ur runnin ide try swapping the ide cables to a dif ide connection on ur motherboard. if u have it in the primary and the cd drives in the secondary switch them and see if it does it
 
It may not be as common but don't think sata data cables can never need replacing. But now that you are seeing the system startup normally one day at a time and ran scans you are looking at a software problem of some type.

If you are getting past the initial splash screen with the scrolling tab and no longer seeing the problem with the boot information you now have to start isolating possible causes. One free tool already included in Windows is the msconfig utility where you can disable any listed items that automatically startup along with Windows.

You get into that by simply typing msconfig in at the Rum prompt and hitting the enter key or clicking the ok button. The Startup group is the tab on the right side there where you can elect to disable all at once. If you see boot normally while you will be disabling video and sound you then proceed to re-enable one thing at a time to see if one of those causes the problem to return.

What this will do is point out anything that saw a bad install and loads up sideways on you or is in conflict with something else installed. It can be a little time consuming but is an effective way to track down problems at times.
 
Well I get the error right after the motherboard screen. It tells me to restart. Sometimes it'll bring up the error again so I have to keep restarting until I finally get to the Windows loading screen.
 
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