"A disk read error occurred"

[carnageX]

Well, there was an interesting (frustrating) turn of events...

The cloning process finished, and once I saw that it had only copied 502GB (there was about 840GB used on the old drive), I knew it wasn't going to work. I decided to try and boot it up anyway, but it just gives me a black screen saying the drive cannot be booted and gives a generic list of possible reasons. Being ok with that, as I had expected it wouldn't work, I decided to put in my windows 7 installation disk and just do a clean install - but when I try, it almost immediately cancels it and starts spewing pop-ups saying "X" file/folder is corrupt or unreadable, so the installation was cancelled. I also tried doing a repair install, and it did the same thing.

Did trying to clone the old HDD somehow corrupt the new one? Is there a way for me to format the disk and get it to a state where I would be able to run a clean install?

I almost had an anxiety attack when I started seeing the word "corrupted" in all those pop-ups.

S.O.S. Please send help lol

Use a GParted LiveCD (or the partition tool built in the Ubuntu LiveCD, which is probably GParted), and format the new drive. Or try and format it via the Windows installer media - though that's just a quick format and I don't suggest just doing quick formats. GParted will do a full format of the drive.

 

[Ausaris]

Hi I'm sure other members will respond. What media are you using to do a clean install?
Are you trying to install windows on the defective HDD?? Did you disconnect the old HDD?
you have a new HDD and can't install Windows??

No, I am trying to do a fresh install of windows 7 on the new drive, because the cloned data from the old drive won't boot. I am using my windows 7 installation cd to do this, and yes, I have disconnected the old HDD.

Just tried the clean install again, and this time I selected a partition that wasn't used during the cloning, and it allowed me to install windows 7 successfully. I will see if I can format the other partition (the one that has the corrupt data from the old drive and won't boot) from inside windows.

EDIT: Or should I just do what Carnage suggested and format the entire drive from Ubuntu and work from there?

 

[donetao]

EDIT: Or should I just do what Carnage suggested and format the entire drive from Ubuntu and work from there?

Yes you always follow what carnage suggests. I just put my 2 cents in, and hope I'm helping.
carnage is the main man here and will solve your issues!
I'll get out of the way!
Gary!

 

[Ausaris]

You always follow what carnage suggests. I just put my 2 cents in, and hope I'm helping.
carnage is the main man here and will sole your issues!
I'll get out of the way!
Gary!

Hahaha I appreciate your help to! I am going to do things in what I am assuming will be the easy way, and format the drive from Ubuntu. For what i'm trying to do, the guides i've been reading for both methods tell me it will be much smoother than what i'm currently trying to do through windows.

 

[Ausaris]

Alright, final update...

GParted worked like a charm, and i'm doing a fresh install of windows 7 on the new HDD now. It sucks that I have to reinstall all my games/software and redo all my customization, BUT, at least i'll have a functioning computer again...

Thanks again for all the help guys. I love how fast you were to respond, and that you gave me advice through the whole process.

Here's to me learning to make back ups of my data! *sigh*

 

[carnageX]

Glad to hear GParted worked for you.

Well, look at it this way...now you can slim down your list of installed applications and only install what you need .

 

[donetao]

Alright, final update...

GParted worked like a charm, and i'm doing a fresh install of windows 7 on the new HDD now. It sucks that I have to reinstall all my games/software and redo all my customization, BUT, at least i'll have a functioning computer again...

Yup that sucks! If you had used a 3rd party imaging program, you would have never had to post on our forum. You could have installed your new HDD and had your PC back up and running just like the day you created the image. With all your games and every thing else!
I preach this all the time, but few ever listen. I have at least 12 images of my OS and I can put a brand new HDD the same size or larger and be back up like it was the day I created that image in about 30 minutes.
PS I'm very happy that you're on your way back to a functioning PC!
Gary!

 

[donetao]

Well, look at it this way...now you can slim down your list of installed applications and only install what you need .

Good one carnage LOL. I need all my Apps. It's nice to have a clean install some times however.LOL

 

[Ausaris]

Well, look at it this way...now you can slim down your list of installed applications and only install what you need .

This is true. I don't really need ALL of the games/software/whatever I had on there. I look forward to filling it all up again haha