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Disk read error.
July 25, 2012 at 3:04 pm
My room-mate's computer recently had a bit of a problem with the hard drive. Or so we suspect. The computer stopped working; every time when someone attempted to start it up it just came up with "Disk read error." Couldn't get it to start in safe mode or anything, obviously, since the OS couldn't even be loaded. We installed Windows 7, and that worked...once. And then it went back to having its little bitchfits and would not work. Eventually, a new hard drive was purchased and installed after three hours [for some reason] of effort [I wasn't present during this but I'm told they went into stuff involving IDE emulators and BIOS setting reconfigurations for some reason which completely and totally makes no sense to me given that this was supposedly a hard drive issue and not a motherboard issue, but anyway]. It worked fine after this effort, but this morning the computer was started up again and another disk read error came up. Room-mate booted the thing up through the install disk, it wouldn't scan the drive again so she told it to restart, and it seems to be working fine after several reboots to confirm [though, watch, it'll go fucky again as soon as I finish typing this].
I'm just wondering; is that one failure just an isolated event? Or is it possible that this is a motherboard issue? Take in mind that the data on the old hard-drive was pulled off [not all of it, just documents, games, and a few programs] and put onto the new one. None of the files transferred were in any way related to the OS or drivers, so I highly doubt it was a virus, but I'm not entirely discounting it all the same.
Any opinions, thoughts? If this thing's gonna go fucked up again, I'd rather have an idea of what to do BEFORE it happens.
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RE: Disk read error.
July 25, 2012 at 3:08 pm
(July 25, 2012 at 3:04 pm)Creed of Heresy Wrote: Or is it possible that this is a motherboard issue?
Could be. I've had hard drive controllers flake out before.
"How is it that a lame man does not annoy us while a lame mind does? Because a lame man recognizes that we are walking straight, while a lame mind says that it is we who are limping." - Pascal
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RE: Disk read error.
July 25, 2012 at 3:59 pm
Quote:The computer stopped working
That is almost always a bad sign.
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RE: Disk read error.
July 25, 2012 at 4:58 pm
(July 25, 2012 at 3:59 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Quote:The computer stopped working
That is almost always a bad sign.
Min, I am pretty sure at this point you post things SPECIFICALLY for kudos and rep.
And fuck you, it works like a charm. *lol*
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RE: Disk read error.
July 25, 2012 at 6:37 pm
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RE: Disk read error.
July 26, 2012 at 5:59 am
Well, it's happening again. With the new hard drive, the system is now coming up with constant "disk read error" messages. Usually says "4th Master disk Read Error." Clearly this is not a hard-drive issue since this is a brand-new hard-drive. Any of the dozen tech junkies on this site have any clue what it could be?
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RE: Disk read error.
July 26, 2012 at 7:42 am
(July 26, 2012 at 5:59 am)Creed of Heresy Wrote: Well, it's happening again. With the new hard drive, the system is now coming up with constant "disk read error" messages. Usually says "4th Master disk Read Error." Clearly this is not a hard-drive issue since this is a brand-new hard-drive. Any of the dozen tech junkies on this site have any clue what it could be?
A program like SpinRite should be able to tell you if the hard drive or hard drive controller is flaking out.
Something else I just thought of, & you didn't mention if it was a SATA or EIDE drive, but have you tried a new data cable? Also, a failing power supply can cause all kinds of weird issues before it dies completely.
"How is it that a lame man does not annoy us while a lame mind does? Because a lame man recognizes that we are walking straight, while a lame mind says that it is we who are limping." - Pascal
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RE: Disk read error.
July 26, 2012 at 8:41 am
If it still doesn't work with a new disk, then it's highly likely that the problem is with either the motherboard or the cable like Jaysyn suggested.
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RE: Disk read error.
July 26, 2012 at 3:57 pm
Not to dittohead Tibbs, but that sounds kosher off the top of my head.
Two little known facts about hard drive failure. First, of the hard drives returned to the factory under warranty, 80% have nothing wrong with them. Second, of those that genuinely have failed, 80% of the failures are in the drive electronics, not the disk or mechanicals. And obviously, only part of the chain of electronics is a part of the disk, the other being the cable, motherboard, and depending, power supply. (There are other obscure failures but they drop off in frequency, faulty memory being next, but I'm about to exhaust all the parts in a computer, thus making my savvy sounding diagnosis little more than a cheap trick with numbers.)
Oh, one last thing to squeeze in here. It's uncommon, but design flaws are not a rarity in computers. It might profit you to google around to see if others with the same hardware have experienced similar issues.
So why am I still talking. I don't know. I'm a hardware girl, and, and, and.... oh just bite it.
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RE: Disk read error.
July 26, 2012 at 4:06 pm
(This post was last modified: July 26, 2012 at 4:12 pm by orogenicman.)
I would check the cables. If there is a loose connection in the power cable it could give an intermittent read error. Same if you have a bad signal cable. Check those before you decide the motherboard is fried. Try a different power cable. If that doesn't solve the problem, use a different signal cable. If that doesn't solve the problem, switch ports on the motherboard. If THAT doesn't solve the problem, it becomes more likely to be a problem with the controller on the motherboard.
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