"DISK READ ERROR, press CTRL+ALT+DEL"

[max88]

My Western Digital Caviar 30.0 GB (MDL: WD300AB-00BVA0) running XP Pro SP2, froze the other day as I was scanning for spyware with Lavasoft SE Plus. I rebooted it but when it got to windows, nothing happened when I tried anything, it was frozen. Tried several times until it took about 10 minutes to boot to windows and still nothing would happen when it got there. Since I had data that I needed in it, I did not want to mess with it any further. I bought a new hard drive and connected the old drive as a slave hoping to be able to get into windows and then copy files from it if I could see it in windows. But the computer will not boot. When starting it reports that the old drive is bad and that I should back everything up adn "press any key to continue". After pressing a key to continue I get the message "Disk Read Error, press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart". When I do that I am locked in that cycle. So, I tried to repair windows by using the 6 XP boot disks. When I got to the C:Windows part I pressed the R (REpair). It reported that the MFT (Master File Table) was corrupt and that "chkdsk" needed to be done. When it tried to do the "chkdsk", it reported that it can't do it, it then went on to do other things, and gave a long list of error in "sector 69786" etc. until it finished after a long long time. At the end when trying to boot, I still got the same "DISK READ ERROR, press CTYRL+ALT+DEL to restart". That is the point at which I decided to come here and look for help. Can someone help please? All I need now is to find a way to boot up to windows, see the old drive, and be able to copy the data files off it. How can I get around that "DISK READ ERROR"? Thank you.

 

[eyec]

disconnect the WD problem drive.
install XP on the new drive and get it up & running then hook up the problem drive as a slave & see if you can then access it.

 

[dbData]

When you say -

"I bought a new hard drive and connected the old drive as a slave hoping to be able to get into windows and then copy files from it if I could see it in windows."

I'll guess you installed Windows on the new drive, before connecting the old one as a slave...

I had a similar problem a few months ago with a 120GB WD drive. The drive had a SMART failure and degraded everytime I ran it. The only potential solution involves buying another drive. You'll need the one you just bought to have a functional operating system. The 3rd drive should be the same size or larger and have the same interface (IDE, SATA, SCSI, etc) as the failed unit. You'll need to image the bad disk sector for sector to the new one. There will likely be bad sectors that can't be copied, data will be gone in those sectors.

You'll then need to extract the data from the imaged copy, if the original was excessively corrupted. You can save the extracted data to the "2nd" drive (the one with the OS on it).

For more details visit

http://www.data-recovery-hub.com.

Best of Luck!
Rick

 

[MFaughn]

Just to let anyone else reading this thread know...

I had a very similar problem and posted elsewhere on this board. Rick at

http://www.data-recovery-hub.com

has been very helpful and knowledgable. Much more so than other folks that have tried to help me out.

Thanks Rick!!!

-Mike

PS--I don't have any affiliation with him or his outfit. I'm just plugging 'cause he really was a lot more helpful than anyone else.

 

[max88]

Disk Read Error", press CTRL+ALT+DEL.

to dbData:

Thank you dbData for the advise. But before I can clone the failed hard drive, I have to boot to windows with the new drive with OS. So far I am not able to do so with the failed drive hooked up as a slave because of that " "Disk Read Error, press CTRL+ALT+DEL". How do I get out of that cycle?

 

[HddGuru]

Easy :O) boot into windows XP as normal.. Then hook up your duff hard drive.....then go into system,hardware and do a re-fresh.. If your luck the system will pick up the duff drive and maybe mount it :O)))

good luck anyway

Mater tua criceta fuit, et pater tuo redoluit bacarum sambucus
Magnus frater spectat te...

 

[max88]

Disk Read Error", press CTRL+ALT+DEL.

To HddGuru:

Thank you for your note HddGuru. My duff hard drive is an internal drive. Problem #1: Do you mean for me to start up my computer and boot into windows XP Pro then open my computer and hook up a drive? Isn't that dangerous? Problem #2: In "system" and then "Hardware", there is no "refresh" option in Windows XP Pro.

 

[dbData]

Imaging the hard drive is usually done from a DOS command prompt and doesn't require Windows.

Additional advice and software information for imaging can be found on my site at

http://www.data-recovery-hub.com.

For your purpose, I'd suggest looking into DiskPatch made by diydatarecovery.com. I base that on price and my perception of your experience level. I haven't used DiskPatch for imaging yet. Though I will be reviewing software for that function next month (I know that doesn't help you much now).


Rick