[TJ-]

I have this problem now for the last 2 days. I turn my computer off at night and on in the morning i get a message saying the computer could not read from disc, press any key or select boot media. (or something along those lines) did some research and found i need to press cntrl alt del and/or reset bios to default. I did all that and today i urned on the computer and got the same message with another one. Disk error on partition ####### could not read from drive. I reset my bios again and it worked.

Is this a problem with my harddrive or something else?

[Rayder]

Possibly a dying BIOS battery. Try putting in a new one.

[Bicka]

Check your ide cable for damage/scratches?

[TJ-]

cables are fine, ill try putting in a new battery this week. But i want to know if this is my hard drive because if it is i will back up all of my data and get a new one. I got scared i thought i lost my work cause the HD died.

where would i get a bios battery from?

[Babalou]

if you are able to get a disk utility program that can boot from cdrom, then try scanning your hard drive for errors.

Also if the MBR is damaged, you could try repairing it. (fixmbr from windows xp repair console for example)

This site has a great utility cd in case you weren't aware of it.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/


I can also share my experience I had over the last few days with a similar situation.
I was given a Dell, it also as yours upon startup displayed the disk read error.
The hard drive & cdrom were detected in the BIOS, but it simply wouldn't boot.
Sometimes it would bootup, but once it arrived to the winxp desktop or shortly after,
a blue screen with a stop message appeared.
After tinkering a bit (replacing ide cables, bios battery, cdrom), I figured out the ram was faulty,
after replacing it, the blue screen
went away, and it could run normally in windows.
However the disk read error did continue.
So I decided to run a full disk can using the western digital disk utility, the drive came out clean.
What I then tried was to wipe the disk clean by writting zeros to it.
I then installed windows onto the drive, but the disk error remained.
I then ran the winxp setup disk and went to the repair console, and ran fixmbr, and got the message,
that the mbr had invalid characters, and it did perform the fix thereafter.
Unfortunatly, the disk read error remained.

Now this brings me to today, I have found a temporary workaround, and that is,
I have noticed the error occurs when the pc is restarted only. it does not occur on a cold boot.
So if I power down, and boot, it boots just fine.
So in this experience, i still beleive the possibility of a faulty drive. but I cannot verify it until I get another to test.

I realize this doesn't provide a fix for you, I just thought I would share my experience with you to maybe give you a little insight.

If you have another drive around, it would certainly be worth a try.
Also scanning your current one would be good.
replacing the bios battery could work, although if your bios shows no signs of losing information after powering off,
that is likely not the issue.

[TJ-]

Thanks Babalou, i just ran a drive error checking and the drive is clean with no errors.

I will see if i can try doing a repair next time i turn on from a cold boot and see if that works.

[PangingJr]

based on my experiences with hard drives, only once that i had to zero-fill hard drive, it was need to be used at the time and that's for an old hard drive long time ago.

normally, you won't need to do zerofill on today harddrive.
to manually check filesystem error in Windows NT-based...
run "chkdsk" in Windows using read-only mode, for example, for checking on drive C,
type this command at the prompt in a CMD Window... chkdsk c:
then run the read-only mode of chkdsk on the other partitions/drives,
if the results come out with no error then there is no filesystem error found, and that's it you won't need to use or run any other special tools.
and again, i've never seen any filesystem error, software bad sectors on my many hard drives with NTFS and Windows NT-based systems for years.

disk surface can be tested before you boot into Windows using your disk utility program whice will be running off any bootable media. your should run the disk surface test first, if you found any error then you should backup your data on the drive before attempting to fix the disk error.

i bought many new hard drives lately, never use any of the disk utility programs,
some of them not even been partitioned or formatted by me before i start using it,
they are ready to use after i transferred the pre-made drive or partition image onto them.
but, at every time before you create the drive/partition image you first will need to check the original drive/partition and this to make sure that there won't be any disk or filesystem error on the other drives that will be useing these image.

and infact, i never used any disk utility programs since the Windows 98 time. if i want to setup a new Windows system using the typical install from the operating system setup CD then i just use the CD to setup my Windows system.


if you think or experience that you're having problem with your hard drive MBR...
first (and always), backup your important flies and be ready to start a new Windows software system on the machine. then you can try to fix it if you would like to.
or no bother and go with a clean install of everything again...
after you have all the needed files off the hard drive, wipe all of the partitions on the drive, then format the MBR, and then clean install of everything.

[swimtech]

After you check your hard drive with chkdsk, if you have no errors, I would suspect weak hard drive mechanics (the data on the drive is probably ok since it boots and runs your programs ok...) or a weak power supply.

[TJ-]

this is what happens on chkdsk, anything irregular?

[PangingJr]

Troubleshooting Disks and File Systems (Windows XP Professional Resource Kit Documentation - http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...d_tro_gwoj.asp)

Repairing Damaged MBRs and Boot Sectors in x86-based Computers

When you start a computer from the hard disk, the BIOS identifies the startup disk and reads the master boot record (MBR). The master boot code in the MBR searches for the active partition on the hard disk. If the first hard disk on the system does not contain an active partition, or if the master boot code cannot locate the boot sector of the system volume so that it can start the operating system, the MBR displays messages similar to the following:

Invalid partition table.
Error loading operating system.
Missing operating system.

If the active partition exists and the master boot record locates the boot sector of the system volume, the master boot code loads the boot sector of the active partition and transfers CPU execution to that memory address. On computers that are running Windows XP Professional, the executable boot code in the boot sector finds Ntldr, loads it into memory, and transfers execution to that file. However, if the boot sector cannot find Ntldr, which is the file that loads the operating system files from the boot volume, Windows XP Professional cannot start. Windows XP Professional might be unable to find Ntldr in these circumstances:

If Ntldr is moved, renamed, or deleted.
If Ntldr is corrupted.
If the boot sector is corrupted.
If you install Windows XP Professional and then later install any of the following on the same computer: MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT 4.0. For more information about configuring a multiple-boot system, see "Planning Deployments" in this book.
Under the preceding circumstances, the computer might not respond to input or might display one of the following messages:

A disk read error occurred.
NTLDR is missing.
NTLDR is compressed.

Restoring the MBR

You must repair the MBR if it becomes corrupted and you can no longer access any volumes on that disk. You can use several tools to repair the MBR. Which tool you choose depends on whether the partition table is also damaged and whether you can start Windows XP Professional.

Use the Recovery Console. You can use the fixmbr command in Recovery Console to repair the MBR. You can start Recovery Console by booting from the Windows XP Professional operating system CD; so this troubleshooting method is available even if Windows XP Professional does not start in normal or safe mode. However, you cannot use Recovery Console to repair partition tables that were damaged by viruses or other corruption.
Use DiskProbe. You can use DiskProbe to restore both the MBR and the partition table, but you must have previously backed up this information by using DiskProbe, and you must be able to start Windows XP Professional.
Use a third-party disk editor. You can use a third-party MS-DOS-based, low-level disk editor to repair the partition table if Windows XP Professional does not start. This method is for experienced users only and involves manually editing the partition table.
Using the Recovery Console to Replace the MBR
You can use the fixmbr command in Recovery Console to rewrite the MBR to resolve a corrupted MBR on a startup disk. However, running fixmbr overwrites only the master boot code, leaving the existing partition table intact. If the corruption in the MBR affects the partition table, running fixmbr might not resolve the problem.

Caution

Use this command with care because it can damage your partition table if any of the following apply:
A virus is present and a third-party operating system is installed on the same computer.
A nonstandard MBR is installed by a third-party disk utility.
A hardware problem exists.

It is recommended that you run antivirus software before you use the fixmbr command.

To start the computer and use the Recovery Console to replace the MBR

Insert the Windows XP Professional Setup CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive.
Restart the computer. If prompted to press a key to start the computer from the CD-ROM, press the appropriate key.
When the text-based part of Setup begins, follow the prompts. Press the R key to repair a Windows XP Professional installation.
If you are repairing a system that has more than one operating system installed, from the Recovery Console choose the Windows XP Professional installation that you need to repair.
Note

If you press ENTER without typing a number, the Recovery Console quits and restarts the computer.
The Recovery Console might also show valid installations of Windows NT 4.0. However, the results of attempting to access a Windows NT 4.0 installation can be unpredictable.
When prompted, type the Administrator password. If you do not have the correct password, or if the security database for the installation of Windows XP Professional you are attempting to access is corrupted, Recovery Console does not allow access to the local disks and you cannot repair the MBR.
To replace the MBR, at the Recovery Console command prompt, type:

fixmbr

Verify if you want to proceed. Depending upon the location and the cause of the corruption within the damaged MBR, this operation can cause the data on the hard disk to become inaccessible. Press the Y key to proceed, or press the N key to cancel.

Replacing the Boot Sector

If Ntldr is damaged or missing, or if the boot sector is corrupted, you can resolve either problem by using the Recovery Console.

To start the computer and use the Recovery Console to replace the boot sector

Insert the Windows XP Professional Setup CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive.
Restart the computer. If prompted to press a key to start the computer from the CD-ROM, press the appropriate key.
When the text-based part of Setup begins, follow the prompts. Press the R key to repair a Windows XP Professional installation.
If you are repairing a system that has more than one operating system installed, from the Recovery Console choose the Windows XP Professional installation that you need to repair.
Note

If you press ENTER without typing a number, the Recovery Console quits and restarts the computer.
The Recovery Console might also show valid installations of Windows NT 4.0. However, the results of attempting to access a Windows NT 4.0 installation can be unpredictable.
When prompted, type the Administrator password. If you do not have the correct password, or if the security database for the installation of Windows XP Professional that you are attempting to access is corrupted, Recovery Console does not allow access to the local disks and you cannot replace the boot sector.
To replace the boot sector, at the Recovery Console command prompt, type:

fixboot [drive:]

If you do not specify a drive letter, the Recovery Console replaces the boot sector of the system volume. If you need to replace the boot sector of a volume that is not the system volume, then you must specify the appropriate drive letter.

Other Disk Problems

Disk problems can occur that do not involve the MBR, partition table, or boot sector. Typically, you cannot use the Windows XP Professional disk tools to troubleshoot these disk problems.

CMOS Problems
The CMOS setup utility is accessible during startup. CMOS typically stores configuration information about the basic elements of the computer, including RAM, video, and storage devices. If CMOS is damaged or incapable of retaining its configuration data, the computer might be unable to start.

Each manufacturer and BIOS vendor can decide what a user can configure in the CMOS utility, and what the standard configuration is. You can access the CMOS utility by using the keyboard sequence that is displayed during startup or by using a software tool, depending on the manufacturer's specifications. It is recommended that you record or print all CMOS information.

The computer uses the CMOS checksum to determine if any CMOS values have been changed other than by using the CMOS setup program. If the checksum is not correct, the computer cannot start.

After the CMOS is correctly configured, any CMOS problem is usually caused by one of the following situations:

A weak battery, which can happen when the computer has been turned off for a long time.
A loose or faulty connection between the CMOS and the battery.
A damaged CMOS caused by static electric discharge.

Cables and Connectors
Another source of disk problems can be cabling and connectors. Cables can become defective, but if the cable works initially, it is likely to work for a long time. When new disks are added to the computer, check for cabling problems. New problems might stem from a previously unused connector on an existing cable or from a faulty, longer cable used to connect all the disks that might have replaced the working original. Also check the connections to the disk themselves. If the cables are tightly stretched, one or more connectors might work themselves loose over time, resulting in intermittent problems with the disks.

If your system has small computer system interface (SCSI) adapters, contact the manufacturer for updated Windows XP Professional drivers. Try disabling sync negotiation in the SCSI BIOS, checking the SCSI identifiers of each device, and confirming proper termination. For AT Attachment devices, define the onboard IDE port as Primary only. Also, check each ATA device for the proper master, slave, or stand-alone setting. Try removing all ATA devices except for hard disks. For universal serial bus and IEEE 1394 disks, verify that the cables are correctly connected and that the adapter card, if used, is securely seated.

[PangingJr]

have you already backup your files?

[swimtech]

Originally Posted by [Di]:Z!ON

this is what happens on chkdsk, anything irregular?

It did find errors, but not all were corrected, run chkdsk /f to fix them, then see if the error recurrs.

[Dark Lord]

ive got an interesting problem that maybe some one knows the answer to. actually, ive got 2 questions for you.

first up, and probably the easiest, it happens with my main rig.

9 times out of 10 when i start my computer from a cold boot it will load up just fine, until after the windows xp loading screen. after the loading screen, it just sits there on a black screen. cant really say how long since i turn it on, walk away and take care of some other stuff and come back and everythng is loaded just fine.

now, when i do sit at my comp. waiting for it to boot, ive found an intersting work around. all i have to do i wait for that black screen to come up and then pop open my cd drive. as soon as that happens windows loads up just fine, and with out fail.

now the other part that makes this real intersting is the ambiant tempeture. when its real cold outside my basement is relatively cold and the problem pops up. now in spring/summer when its a whole lot warmer out 9 out of 10 times theres no problem at all.


and now the second problem, and one that im completly stumped on.

first off, the specs.
2600+
some foxconn mobo
512 kingston ram
280? watt psu
100gig HD, western digital if i remember correctly.

family comp. so i dont touch it too much.

when the computer first starts an error messege appears. bios chcksum failed, defaults loaded. press F1 to continue. not a clue whats going on here seeing as ive never touched the bios and this just poped up all of the sudden one day.

continueing on..
windows loads up like its supposed to but at the welcome screen it freezes and beeps. just the standard Chord beep. you can let it sit all day and nothing happens, no warning pops up, no nothing. hit ctrl alt del at that screen and windows boots up and runs fine.

and lastly, the damn clock is allways wrong. january 1st 2002 @ 12:00 am is what it always is every time it starts up. i figured it was something going on with the bios clock so i set it to the correct date, reboot, have windows synch with the time server and everything is just fine.

computer gets turned off at night, and then the next morning its back to jan. 1st 2002 @ 12:00am again. both in the bios and windows clock. and again, this just started happening one day from out of the blue.

as for disk errors on this system, everything checks out just fine.

[PangingJr]

Originally Posted by [Di]:Z!ON

this is what happens on chkdsk, anything irregular?

no.

the problem is in the MBR,
or other part of your hardware.
i think your hard drive is still OK.

[swimtech]

Originally Posted by Dark Lord

...
first off, the specs.
2600+
some foxconn mobo
512 kingston ram
280? watt psu
100gig HD, western digital if i remember correctly.

family comp. so i dont touch it too much.

when the computer first starts an error messege appears. bios chcksum failed, defaults loaded. press F1 to continue. not a clue whats going on here seeing as ive never touched the bios and this just poped up all of the sudden one day.

continueing on..
windows loads up like its supposed to but at the welcome screen it freezes and beeps. just the standard Chord beep. you can let it sit all day and nothing happens, no warning pops up, no nothing. hit ctrl alt del at that screen and windows boots up and runs fine.

and lastly, the damn clock is allways wrong. january 1st 2002 @ 12:00 am is what it always is every time it starts up. i figured it was something going on with the bios clock so i set it to the correct date, reboot, have windows synch with the time server and everything is just fine.

computer gets turned off at night, and then the next morning its back to jan. 1st 2002 @ 12:00am again. both in the bios and windows clock. and again, this just started happening one day from out of the blue.

as for disk errors on this system, everything checks out just fine.

This should be a new thread BTW, but is a classic sign of a dead motherboard battery - generally a round shiny disk - replacements at your local Radio Shack... The first part could be a weak power supply.

[Dark Lord]

kinda figured as much, but i never got around to asking about it. its been going on like this for probably almost 18 months now.

[PangingJr]

[Di]:Z!ON,
assume that all of your hardware are in good condition.
backup your files to other drive when your can still easily do it like this...
then try restoring the MBR.

if this does not help (sometimes it won't) and if all of your hardware are in good condition which i believe so...
wipe the hard drive by deleting all partition on it, recreate a new partition and install Windows...
-Or-
you might want to choose this way if you already have the tool...
wipe the hard drive by deleting all partition on it using third-party partitioning software in mode DOS (or whatever),
then recreate a new partition and set active to this partition in one step,
then restart your computer and stopt at the BIOS setup and reset your BIOS to first boot CD, at the same time place the Windows XP CD on the drive,
then quit the BIOS setup program and restart your computer. press Enter to boot the Windows setup CD... and clean install Windows. this way part of the damage MBR will be re-formatted and i believe this will fix the booting problem.

and if i were you, forget the RC and re-write (format) the boot record with the standard boot record using fdisk /mbr command from a Windows 98/ME startup diskette
(press Shift+F5 for not to load drivers, then at the prompt type the command and Enter, then restart the computer to Windows XP in normal mode).
this makes the similar problem go away as of my experienced in the past. you may see that the Windows XP's PnP manager report "fond new hardware" after you boot into the Windows, just reboot again when it asks you to.
this is the fastest way to fix or find out.. but you must save all of your files first, since this command can kill all of your data on the drive.

[PangingJr]

Originally Posted by swimtech

It did find errors, but not all were corrected, run chkdsk /f to fix them, then see if the error recurrs.

sorry, swimtech you were right about what you were saying. i just don't read much of anything at all while doing something else at same time , my bad, and did not give you a longer version of my response...

Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap. Windows found problems with the file system.

Issue:

Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap. Windows found problems with the file system. Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct these.
This is a known issue and the error messages are not actually means that there is problem in your system. You can safely ignore the error messages. The reason you are seeing these errors appear is because when you run CHKDSK in command prompt, it runs in “Read only” mode, and the state of the computer is changing at the time you run the utility. A "read only" chkdsk on an active NTFS volume will result in false positive errors, this is normal.

Read-only CHKDSK will abort before it completes all three phases if it encounters errors in earlier phases and is prone to falsely reporting errors when in read-only mode. That is, CHKDSK may report that a disk is corrupted even when there is no real corruption present. This can happen if NTFS happens to modify areas of the disk on behalf of some program activity that CHKDSK is examining at the same time.

To verify a volume correctly, the volume must be in a static state, and the onlyway to guarantee that state is to lock the volume. CHKDSK only locks the volumewhen it runs before entering Windows or in Recovery Console with /F or /R (whichimplies "F") is specified.

To verify this, you can restart your computer in Recovery Console and run “CHKDSK /f” in there. See if you get any error messages.

if the chkdsk did not find any error i like to suggest you don't force chkdsk to fix anything.

there is already a quick check disk provided by Windows at each and every startup which you may not see it, it's done behind the beautiful boot screen.

Windows XP will run a full/ an auto-Chkdsk if your NTFS was flagged dirty. the most cause of the NTFS to have the dirty bit will be: due to an abormal shutdown, an improper or incomplete shutdown process, a hard shutdown by user.

so as i mentioned before, normally, if you are using NTFS you do not need to run chkdsk manually, just let it do its own thing.

[TJ-]

Lets just assume that i dont know much about hard drives or computers at all in general.

My hard disk is a 160GB partitioned into 90 and 70, windows installed on the 70gig. So your saying the best thing to do would be to delete the partition and delete all data on this hard drive. (after saving them of course) Then create the partition again and install windows again?

Or would just a cleen install of windows fix the problem?

[PangingJr]

if it's not a single large primary partition using entire hard drive space then you can move your needed files to the none-system partition and save this partition.

but why you install Windows on the 70 GB, is this the second partition on the hard drive?

[TJ-]

Originally Posted by PangingJr

but why you install Windows on the 70 GB, is this the second partition on the hard drive?

yes...

[PangingJr]

what type of the 90 GB partition, primary or extended?
could you show me a pic of your drive layouts.... open a Run box and type diskmgmt.msc then Enter.
take a pic of the Disk Management snap-in window... and post.

don't you think someting like this would be better?

[PangingJr]

How much hard drive space is used on the 90 GB partition?

How much hard drive space is used on 70 GB Windows/system partition?

How much files in the 70 GB partition that you want to save?

[TJ-]

Originally Posted by PangingJr

How much hard drive space is used on the 90 GB partition?

How much hard drive space is used on 70 GB Windows/system partition?

How much files in the 70 GB partition that you want to save?

here is a view of my system. I want to keep ALL of the data on the GAMEZ (D) drive. The rest on C drive is just windows and a few games, nothing important.

Do you think i should cut the 60 gig C drive into 2, one for windows and the other for something else..?

[PangingJr]

"Do you think i should cut the 60 gig C drive into 2, one for windows and the other for something else..?"

i think you want a new hard drive as i saw the freespace left...

C primary partition/Windows system = about 15 - 20 GB, then give rest of space on the first drive to the GAMEZ (D) drive.

in the C drive install Windows, Office, and paging file.

after you got new hard drive... set this drive as second drive and install your game and program in one of the partition. and then save all of the other data/files, music, movies, whatever to the GAMEZ partition instead.
then on another partition of the new drive - you will have more space for backup your files, then you can move Temp and TIF, some of Log files, may be Docs & Settings from C to this partition, and may be another paging file. you will then see some improvement of your disk drives and other things.

[swimtech]

Originally Posted by PangingJr

sorry, swimtech you were right about what you were saying. i just don't read much of anything at all while doing something else at same time , my bad, and did not give you a longer version of my response...



if the chkdsk did not find any error i like to suggest you don't force chkdsk to fix anything.

there is already a quick check disk provided by Windows at each and every startup which you may not see it, it's done behind the beautiful boot screen.

Windows XP will run a full/ an auto-Chkdsk if your NTFS was flagged dirty. the most cause of the NTFS to have the dirty bit will be: due to an abormal shutdown, an improper or incomplete shutdown process, a hard shutdown by user.

so as i mentioned before, normally, if you are using NTFS you do not need to run chkdsk manually, just let it do its own thing.

Cool, I learned something today - thanks again PangingJr. He was running this in the Command Prompt window (while still in Windows...) so the false error is safely ignored - your attention to detail and knowledge of Windows internals is, as always, amazing to me...

Did not mean to mislead you [Di]:Z!ON

[TJ-]

thanks PangingJr, i will pick up a new hard drive this week and might have some more questions then,

@swimtech no worries man we all learn something everyday.