Disk Read Error 3

[boweasel]

Running (or rather, WAS running) Windows XP Professional SP2. One day last week the machine began to run VERY slowly, and thinking I might have picked up something, I attempted to run Spybot S&D. I was just barely able to open the tool when the PC shut down.

When it restarted I got the DOS screen-like message "Disk Read Error. Press CNTL\ALT\DEL to restart" (or continue, I don't remember exactly). Of course CNTL\ALT\DEL only brings the same result.

I am unable to access the screen for safe mode. About the only thing I can do is access the BIOS, and I did set everything back to normal settings, but of course it made no difference.

This is a PC I bought a couple years ago from a friend (now deceased) who put it together himself, and the install CD he used is who knows where. I do have a product code for XP Pro, but without a CD I have no idea what to attempt.

I really, REALLY don't want to lose everything I have on this PC, so any thoughts would be greatly appreciated...

 

[vacunita]

If you can get into BIOS, is the Hard drive being detected there or not?

If it is, you may still be able to salvage your data.

As for the XP CD, unless you plan on re-installing the machine, you can use any XP install CD, (full install, not Recovery or Rescue Cd) and perform a repair with it.

You could also remove the hard drive from the machine and slave it onto another machine you may have, and try to get the data off that way.

but the first thing to do is determine if the Hard drive is still being recognized.






----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[boweasel]

Yes, the hard drive IS being detected...

And I do have an XP Home CD (don't ask...)

I thought there might be some way to access Repair without an install CD, or to get to a screen where I might run chkdsk /r.

 

[vacunita]

Use your XP Home CD and boot from it and run the recovery console That way you'll be able to run chkdsk command.




----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[boweasel]

Thanks. For some reason I was sure that I could not boot an XP Pro PC w/ an XP Home CD. I'll give it a try tomorrow and report back.

 

[goombawaho]

You could also do a manual system restore (after the chkdsk) from the recovery console if you need to go back a few days to a restore point.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

It's a much easier process with a BartPE CD, but if you've got an XP CD, you can do it with the above procedure.

 

[boweasel]

Well its been a couple of weeks and I finally got around to trying to boot with my XP Home CD...

I hit 'R' to access Repair and at the DOS-like prompt I entered chkdsk /r. It stopped at 36% with the msg 'The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems'. Same results for chkdsk /p.

I tried the manual system restore referenced by goombawaho in a microsoft link. A couple of problems...
1. Was never prompted to enter an Administrator password
2. When I typed in 'md tmp', I get 'Access is denied'

This frickin' PC WAS working just fine. I had no clue the roof was about to cave in on me.

Any more ideas?

 

[linney]

It sounds as if the hard drive may have died. The hard drive manufacturer will have free bootable diagnostic software that will thoroughly check the condition of your hard drive.

Any recovery of data may need to be carried out via another working operating system, or you could use BartPE and save the recoverable data to USB.

BartPE (a mini XP self contained on a bootable CD and run from CD).

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

 

[boweasel]

linney

Could you give a liitle info on how BartPE works? Since my XP machine is currently inoperable, I would obviously need someone else to download and burn me a CD, but, assuming I can find someone to do just that, what would I do with the CD? Just pop it into my CD-ROM drive and the PC will boot to the point where I can offload files off my hard drive onto an external hard drive? Or a flash drive, or 3?

Currently, at the repair console I cannot even access a flash drive plugged into a USB port on my XP PRO. Hell I can't even type DIR from my C: drive - I get "an error occurred during directory enumeration".

 

[linney]

BartPE can access USB drives.

What computer are you writing this on.

If you don't want to create the BartePE CD, go to any computer repair shop and see if they have a copy they can give you or sell you, or make for you. You don't have to get too involved with the plugin side of BartPE. You just want a basic BartPE CD that is bootable. This will be bootable and you just stick it in your machine and boot from it. The Bios must be set to boot from a CD ahead of the hard drive.

Once in BartPE, ignore prompts for Network Setup etc. Look for A43 File Manager via the Start Menu and use it like you use Windows Explorer. Save your files.

 

[boweasel]

I am (blush) writing this on an OLD Windows 98 PC with a CD-ROM drive that is non-functional.

I don't really know how to determine what kind of hard drive I have, short of pulling it out. I suppose I could do that, and download any dianostic info the manufacturer might have to a floppy (yes the W98 has a floppy drive), and slap it in my XP PRO (also floppy enabled) and run it from the recovery console.

I'll see if I can get a friend to create a BartPE CD

 

[boweasel]

Okay, I gave a friend the link to the BartPE CD creation. She created it, and it does nothing. Apparently, all that's on the CD is a file called UBCD411.iso.

I'm now typing this on a Vista PC with CD/DVD R/W capability.

But I'm unclear how to proceed. The BartPE link mentions a necessity for having your original Microsoft Windows XP installation/setup CD. Which I don't have. As I mentioned, I'm running XP PRO on the PC that won't boot, but I do have an XP Home installation/setup CD. Will that work?

 

[tlcscousin]

Yes an xp home cd will work.
When you run the Bart PECD maker it creates an ISO file which you then burn to cd.
When you boot the computer having the issue make sure you also have the USB drive you want to use to store the files onto plugged in at the same time.
When you boot to the CD you can access the file manager and copy and paste any files (if they can be accessed) to the USB device.
This is usually a fairly slow process and will quite often appear to hang for a long time while performing the operation.

 

[linney]

You need to use software like Nero, or similar, to burn the .iso image to a CD. This will convert the .iso image into the CD and make it bootable. In the case of Nero, it will open the .iso image and copy the contained files in the image, you don't want it to make a physical copy of the .iso, you want it to open it as an image file and expand the files within in the image to create a CD that is bootable..


Use ISO image files.

An ISO-9660 image file is an exact representation of a CD or DVD that includes the content and the logical format. The most common use of an ISO image file is to record, or "burn," the image file to a recordable CD or DVD. This operation creates a copy of the original disc that includes the file name and volume label information. You can open ISO image files and copy their contents to a local folder. This is similar to ZIP files. Additionally, you can mount and access ISO image files as a virtual device.

Note To create a usable CD-ROM from an ISO image file, you must use third-party CD-ROM writing software. For more information about how to create the CD-ROM or about how to mount an ISO image file, see the documentation that is included with the third-party CD-ROM writing software.

 

[mokee03]

Hi Michael here, I have a good bit of experience here.
First of all buy yourself a ide to usb converter, you should be able to get one from any good electronics store.

You can use this to recover your data. Take out the harddrive and attach the device then connect to another pc via usb turn on the device and try and get all you data off or as much as possible.

Then put the harddrive back and rebuilt ensuring you create two partitions. One for the OS i.e. C:\ and one for data. D:\.

When thats finished put your data back on your old pc.

Backup up daily, only takes ten minutes.

You may have to replace the HDD if this happens again one of the first things to go in a PC is the HDD as it is electronic machanical.

Michael

 

[boweasel]

How did this get so complicated? I've heard for some time of the wonders of the BartPE disk, but apparently I'm considerably dumber than everyone on every forum who has praised the product.

I have an icon on my desktop called PE Builder. I opened it up and it gives me a screen (that either I cannot add as an attachment, or is not visible on the preview option) that asks me for a source for my Windows installation files (I entered the drive with my Windows Home CD in the bay), the output (BartPE), the media output (I selected create ISO image), and for the filename I entered c:\pebuilder3110a\pebuilder.iso.

I clicked on build, and it went thru lots and lots of gyrations, and when it was finished I had a folder (BartPE) under my pebuilder3110a folder. But there's no .iso file in it or any of the subfolders it created, just the .iso file pebuilder.iso in the pebuilder3110a folder.

So I went back into the BartPE task and selected Burn to CD/DVD, took the XP Home out of the E: drive, put in a blank CD, clicked on build, and got an error msg: Invalid source path (cannot find file E:i386/setupldr.bin. So what do I do now? This PC HAS Nero on it, but I am so confused about the methodology for creating this fricking CD that I am barely able to think straight. I can only keep this PC for a short time.

 

[BadBigBen]

boweasel - first of all, it is never a good idea to jump a thread... if you have a problem PLEASE start your own thread, explaining exactly what the problem is, what you already have done in research to fix the problem, all relevant info as possible...

now once PEBuilder is done, you will notice that it has created several subfolders, and an ISO file...

this ISO file, in your case saved at "c:\pebuilder3110a\pebuilder.iso", can be right clicked and opened with NERO, or open up NERO EXPRESS and point it to that file and then burn it to a CD... THAT IS IT!...


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[boweasel]

boweasel - first of all, it is never a good idea to jump a thread... if you have a problem PLEASE start your own thread, explaining exactly what the problem is, what you already have done in research to fix the problem, all relevant info as possible..."

Ben
I don't even know what the phrase 'jump a thread means'. I started this thread, because I had a disk read error. The BartPE stuff was introduced by someone responding to my original problem.

That being said, your instruction on right-clicking and opening with Nero were on the money. The BartPE CD has been created.

Thank you.

 

[linney]

c:/users/owner/pictures/pebuilder.jpeg", you are linking to your own machine, if you want to post a link of a screenshot see these.

http://www.uploadit.org/

http://www.photobucket.com/

http://reg.imageshack.us/register.php

Glad you got BartPE running, I hope it works for you like it does for me and others.

 

[BadBigBen]

I don't even know what the phrase 'jump a thread means'.

Sorry, that was my mistake... I had been following the thread, but when I answered I had forgotten who started it, and just scrolled down to the last entry, and presumed wrongly that you jumped the thread...

Thread Jumping - when someone not related to the original problem, decides to post his or her problem, which may or may not be related to the original problem...

glad you got BartPE burned and running...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"