"A disk read error occurred"

[Ausaris]

Hello all,

My computer has been misbehaving and freezing for anywhere from 3 seconds to a couple minutes at random times lately, and earlier today it locked up to the point that it wouldn't respond to any input at all, so I forced it to shut down with the power button, and when I booted it back up it took 15 minutes to get past the splash screen, and when it did it was just a black screen with the words "A disk read error occurred" in the top left corner.

I searched the interwebs and found out that this usually doesn't mean my data has been lost, which filled me with hope. But after putting in my windows 7 disk and getting into command prompt through the repair options, to run chkdsk as my first attempt at a solution, I could not figure out a way to get it to scan the disk. It seemed to be running the chkdsk on my windows 7 cd. After rebooting the system and checking the bios, I found that my HDD was no longer being picked up, although if I do further system reboots, it will occasionally pick the HDD up again, but after restarting again to try and boot from the windows 7 disk to attempt some kind of repair, it no longer picks up the HDD.

Any ideas my friends? If there is any other information that you need, just ask and i'll find whatever I can.

 

[donetao]

Hi I would suspect the HHD; if you can't run a chkdsk from command prompt. You could give seagate dos a try???
SeaTools for DOS | Seagate
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/201271en?language=en_US

 

[Joe C]

Sounds like it's in it's death throws.
Can you feel the drive to tell if it's running really hot?
(pop the side off your case so you can access it)
Does it make any kind of noises?

 

[setishock]

Could be the drive's controller board has bit the weenie or the MBR is corrupt. Either way I'd replace it. Good excuse to get an SSD.

 

[1etherer]

100% hdd failure! this will result in all data loss if you can not access it anymore..

As you say it shows up every now and again, get a sata to USB cable and plug the hdd into a spare laptop or PC.. Keep trying to get it to show up in "my computer", once you do, quickly copy the data off the failing hdd to the machine...

Then smash up the failing hdd or use a magnet to destroy the hdd just in case

Then buy a new Crucial or Samsung ssd

Note: no point trying to save the hdd, best to just get the data off in this situation.

 

[Ausaris]

Sounds like it's in it's death throws.
Can you feel the drive to tell if it's running really hot?
(pop the side off your case so you can access it)
Does it make any kind of noises?

I did check to see if it had a fever, it was running cool as usual. I did notice, however, that it is making a slight, but constant, grinding or scratching noise while it's spinning. I'm honestly unsure if it ever made the sound before, but the fact that it's constant and I can't remember whether it made the noise before or not worries me.

Guess i'll have to look into getting a new HDD then :/ I'd go for an SSD, but I have around 800Gb used on the drive, and I don't imagine an SSD with enough space for my ridiculous number of video games and such would be to cheap.

Would there be a way for me to try to duplicate the data from my old drive onto the new one, so it would run and be set up the same as it's predecessor? Internet speeds are absolutely terrible where I live - I average 700-800Kbps download speeds - and if I can avoid even a few of the hundreds of hours of setup and installing it would take to get my computer set up the way it was again, i'll take it.

 

[carnageX]

Would there be a way for me to try to duplicate the data from my old drive onto the new one, so it would run and be set up the same as it's predecessor? Internet speeds are absolutely terrible where I live - I average 700-800Kbps download speeds - and if I can avoid even a few of the hundreds of hours of setup and installing it would take to get my computer set up the way it was again, i'll take it.

Cloning probably isn't going to be an option because of how "fragile" the drive is.

If you can't get to your data via Windows, I highly recommend a Linux LiveCD, such as Ubuntu. Linux is usually more forgiving when it comes to reading data off of a dying HDD.

 

[donetao]

Hi! I have never used Ubuntu to recover data from a non-bottable drive! I have used another Linux CD. I believe it is your best shot to recover your data as carnage has suggested. Here's a link unless carnage has a better one. It's worth a shot if you can't into Windows!
Gary!
Use Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows Computer

 

[Ausaris]

Cloning probably isn't going to be an option because of how "fragile" the drive is.

If you can't get to your data via Windows, I highly recommend a Linux LiveCD, such as Ubuntu. Linux is usually more forgiving when it comes to reading data off of a dying HDD.

I do have a bootable Ubuntu usb that I set up a while ago to try it out, so i'll use that when I try to save some the data. Hopefully i'll actually be able to get at some of it.

 

[carnageX]

I do have a bootable Ubuntu usb that I set up a while ago to try it out, so i'll use that when I try to save some the data. Hopefully i'll actually be able to get at some of it.

An essential tool in a tech's toolkit, IMO . Good luck, let us know what you find out.