My PC won't boot.

Fazer6

Hello lads.
My PC refuses to boot. I get 'A disk read error has occurred'.
I've tried Google for an answer which usually tells me that my HD is knackered.
I've put the HD in another PC and it appears to be ok.
I think that I'm missing something obvious.
Any help or suggestions would be greatfully appreciated.

Fazer6.

old_aussie

Are you booting from the suspect HDD in the other computer?

MarkR

Make sure you don't have a bootable usb drive attached?

Fazer6

No I'm not.
I'm just swapping it out with a second drive in another PC.
I'll try using it as the boot drive and see what happens.

Fazer6.

Fazer6

There are not usb drives attached.

PlanIT Computing

Make sure there's no floppy disks or CD's in any of the drives and try booting again.

swiss

It could be an issue with the MBR of the Hard Disk. If its a standard windows install (no partitions, boot utilities etc) you could try a fixmbr command from a recovery console.

CrinkElite

have you checked the boot order in the bios?
If your cmos battery is loosing it's charge your bios may resort to failsafe defaults which may not be suited to your current setup.

Fazer6

I've reset the bios settings and the pc will only boot in safe mode. I've accessed the recovery panel and I'm asked for the administrators password. I've no idea what is is so I can't go any further down that road. If I boot into normal mode I got a stop error 0x000000024. Does this mean that my is really knackered now?

patwicklow

Best thing to do is factory reset it, it,l be like new but all will be lost.

Fazer6

Thanks patwicklow. How do I do that?
By the way, I inherited this pc from a friend who built it himself and he doesn't have any of the cds that came with the components. They went in the bin during a spring clean.

CrinkElite

boot into safe mode
hit start
open "my computer" in xp or "computer" on vista/win7
right click on the C: drive and hit properties.
go to the "tools" tab and select error checking.
follow the on screen instruction.

you may want to back up any vital documents beforehand as there is a very small chance that the error correction process can sometimes kill a dying drive.

Fazer6

Thanks CrinkElite.
I'll try that this evening and report back.

Fazer6

The pc now refuses to boot into safe mode....
Unless it's the motherboard, I'm out of ideas at this stage.
I'm open to suggestions.

CrinkElite

Hi fazar6. I think the best bet would be t et your hands on a copy of winxp
The following link will tell you how to access the recovery console

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058

When you see the command prompt you should type "chkdsk /r" without quotes and hit enter.

The process will attempt to recover missing information on your hard disk and it should take a long time to finish.

Any xp cd will do the trick as you wont be installing windows.
PM me if you are unable to find a copy.

Fazer6

Thanks CrinkElite.

I have a copy of win xp, I'll give this a go tonight and let you know how I get on.

Fazer6.

Fazer6

Major sadness, no joy with XP ((((((