A disk read error occurred. 1

[Itshim]

I have a CPU running Windows XP Pro, the computer is a few years old and have had no problems with it (other than the usual). I was using the computer last night, without any issues, and I shutdown the system normally. This morning I started the computer and after the hardware was detected, I received this message 'A disk read error occurred. Press CTRL-ALT-DEL to restart'. Of course restarting the computer does nothing but get me the message again.

I have another machine running Windows XP Pro, and I wanted to access the 'bad' hard drive so I set the jumpers to slave and connected it to the computer. The computer detects the secondary hard drive fine, when viewing in Windows Explorer the drive letter is set, but when I click on the drive to view the files, windows says 'this drive has not been formatted. Would you like to format the drive now?'

So I guess I have two questions:
Does anyone know some steps to fix the hard drive?

Can I get Windows Explorer to 'see' the files of the secondary hard drive?

Any help is appreciated
Thank you

 

[Thesuperiorone]

Well, my first question is regarding your first comment. What are the "usual" problems that you have with Windows XP?

Second, it sounds like one of a few things could have happened.

1- Your computer had some sort of virus or other malware that totally screwed up your hard drive.
2- Your computer might have experienced some sort of power surge.
3- There could be some sort of physical defect that existed or formed somehow on the disk.

Have you run a disk analyzer on the HDD to see if there are any physical errors?

I am not sure if there is any way for you to retrieve the data now that the HDD thinks it has been formated, in all reality if only a little data is lost the formatting and data coudl be lost.

There may be utilities or work-arounds out there to get the files off. Sorry I can't suggest anything.

 

[Itshim]

Sorry, when I said 'the usual problems' I was referring to software issues, I have not had any problems with hardware or Windows before this incident.

I ran a diagnostic tool from the hard drive manufacturer and it came back with 'one or more bad sectors found'. I can then choose to erase the hard drive or fix the sectors, but it does not tell me how many sectors are bad, and fixing the sectors would erase that data.

I guess I would really like to get the hard drive setup in another machine, so I can at least get the important data off before I try to erase the bad sectors.

Thanks.

 

[xkjdhdg]

Fixing the errors will not always cause you to lose your data.
If you have the disk on another machine. I would try running chkdsk /F. This will fix the disk and save you data. It sounds like your drive has lost the system information file.
This can be cause by several things. If all else fails find a trial data recovery program or some freeware and recovery your data. Then format your drive. The bottom line is you will end up format the drive.

 

[xkjdhdg]

Fixing the errors will not always cause you to lose your data.
If you have the disk on another machine. I would try running chkdsk /F. This will fix the disk and save you data. It sounds like your drive has lost the system information file.
This can be cause by several things. If all else fails find a trial data recovery program or some freeware and recovery your data. Then format your drive. The bottom line is you will end up formatting the drive.

 

[stduc]

Was the drive seen by windows originally as a basic or dynamic partition? Can you mount the drive as 'foreign'?

Once you have bad sectors on a drive you don't usually have long to wait before it dies completely. Maybe a month, maybe longer.

The best advice I can give you is to but spinrite from grc.com and scan the drive to fix the bad sector errors.

Then buy getdataback from runtime.org if after spinrite you still can' mount the drive as a slave and use XP to copy your data.

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]

 

[Thesuperiorone]

Also, "fixing" bad sectors is not generally a permanant fix. Once the sectors start to go, generally more will start to go as well.

If you are able to recover your data, I would not use this HDD as a primary again. Most I would do is use as a diagnostic tool if you need to test the IDE or SATA port..

Chris

 

[stduc]

Spinrite attempts to recover all the data from a bad sector. It then writes that data (or as much as it could recover) to a good sector and marks the bad sector as bad so the O/S won't use it again. In that sense it is a permanent fix. But as I already said - don't trust a disk that is going bad - get the data off and use it as a scratch disk or for testing until it dies - which it will.

Spinrite gives you a very good idea of the general state of health of your drive. But you should be aware it recovery data from bad sectors by making multiple attempts and comparing the results of each attempt. It then uses statistical techniques to conclude whether it has got good data or garbage. Whether it succeeds in recovering data or not dodgy sectors are marked as bad so the O/S - windows say, ignores them. But if you have more than 1 or 2 bad sectors Spinrite can take an age to complete - I usually leave it running overnight. But it has got me out of several holes.

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]

 

[Itshim]

Thank you all for suggestions.

I tried to run chkdsk /f to the drive. It displayed a message that the file system was NTFS then a few seconds later it displayed: Unable to locate system volume information chkdsk must exit.

One thing I did not mention before is that once I put the hard drive (as a secondary drive) in the other machine, that machine seemed to drag when ever I tried to do anything.

I decided to download and run getdataback. It took about 5 hours scan the hard drive (40 gigs) and appeared to be working, but once the scan was complete, getdataback started 'building a tree' of the drive. Upon getting to 100% the computer froze. I could move the mouse but I was unable to click anything. I waited about 30 minutes and still no response, finally I turned off the computer using the power button (I know you should never do that).

Anyway, I was fed up for the day, took the hard drive out of the machine and booted, everything went back to normal. The machine does not drag and am currently trying to decide if I should just forget about the data or continue the quest.

Again thanks to everyone who has replied.