A disk read error occurred

My family has a problem with their computer.

When the computer starts up it does the memory test then bleeps once then instead of windows xp loading it displays the message: "a disk read error occurred press ctrl+alt+del to restart.

The computer is just over seven years old and im thinking this might mean a corrupt hard drive.

I know a pc tech who has taken a look at it and advised my sister to run scan disk but apparently this did not fix the problem.

He recommended as it is an old pc just to sell it on ebay which i am thinking of doing you people are my last result.

EDIT: As the computer is old and due to my lack of hardware knowledge i do not want to swap hardware components or replace the hardware.

But i do want to find out what is causing this problem.

Lots of information on this error on google but i cannot find a solution.

OK. One beep from the BIOS means that it booted properly. The issue with the OS not loading sounds more like the Master Boot Record and/or the File Allocation Tables.

A question..................how did you run scandisk (actually "checkdisk") without the OS?.................. it is a Windows application................

Im not sure how scandisk/checkdisk was run without the OS.

My sister just told me that the pc tech got her into it and told her to watch and see if it displays any errors and if it does to "fix" the errors it finds.

It won't find errors in the MBR or FAT, and it certainly won't fix them ;) It is intended to check stuff in the Windows OS filesystem, rather than the bits associated with the hard drive and filesystem management.

You say you are not confident in hardware repairs? OK, how good are you with software? Would you feel confident in downloading stuff and creating a bootable CD or floppy?

Forget about ebay...........................:eek:

Yes i am confident in software and i have a cd-rw drive and some blank cd-r's.

even booting with a dos disk and doing fdisk/mbr might get your drive in order.

reseating the cables power and data another simple fix

A seven-year-old harddrive is pretty old (and probably noisy, too, compared with today's drives!), assuming the computer has been used regularly. If she has any data to salvage, I'd boot from a liveCD, copy the data over to network or other attached storage (perhaps a second drive?) and either replace the drive or, as you noted, sell the computer. Of course, you'll probably want to remove the drive either way. Good modern replacements can be had for less than $0.25 per gigabyte, in some cases.

Edit: Just saw your edit that said you didn't want to swap hardware components. That'll teach me to read more carefully.

In that case, you might be in luck with running some sort of drive fitness test or diagnostics, probably from a liveCD. However, considering the age of the drive, some of your options may be more limited (I doubt you'll be able to run SMART diagnostics, for example).

Even so, I really do feel a drive that old has seen some long duty, and probably won't last forever, regardless. I do hope you're backing up critical data :)

You can get a bootable CD with tools here:

http://www.ubcd4win.com/contents.htm

Try booting into the BIOS setup and see what type of hard drive you have, It will be a string of letters and numbers, try putting it into Google and you should find out what make of drive it is.

Go to the manufacturer's website and get their diagnostic and/or repair utility and run that.

Remember, before disposing of it that the drive contains all the private and personal data that has been entered on it. Sell someone a dud computer and I wonder what they might do with that? :eek:

I like to take my old hard drives to the rifle range when I know a buddy has to sight his rifle in. I use a compound bow and a crossbow, they don't do enough damage. Do you have any idea what a 9mm does to a hard drive?

Nope,

But on a CRT display and a full can of shaving foam the results are pretty impressive :D