A read disk error has occurred

[janniz]

my technical issue started when i tried to plug-in a USB broadband modem into my mom's IBM T30. the OS (Win XP Home) recognized the USB device, but couldnt install the driver. so i then downloaded a driver for the said USB modem from the manufacturer website and manually installed the driver. it successfully installed via device manager, but then the USB modem with a yellow exclamation point came back (weird).

so i tried reinstalling the OS using my XP Home CD, but it couldnt extract the files, so i thought it was just the CD. i borrowed a friend's XP Home CD and was able to extract the files, but when the computer restarted, instead of it going to the GUI screen, it went to a black screen with the message:

A Disk Read Error has Occurred
Press Ctrl-Alt-Del

then i tried restarting the computer again and got this message:

Windows NT could not start because the below file is missing or corrupt:
C:\Winnt\System32\Ntoskrnl.exe

again, then i tried restarting the computer again and got this message:

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

i don't know what to do right now. is my hard drive damaged?
Thanks in Advance!

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

From the descriptions, it certainly sounds like the problem could be with your hard drive, or you may simply have an OS install that went wrong. You can troubleshoot it this way:

- download a copy of PC Doctor for DOS, either available as an .ISO image for burning onto a CD-R/CD-RW: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-56222 or as three files for making a floppy disk set here: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-54659
- once you have created the disk(s), boot the system with PC Doctor and run the Fixed Disk diagnostics. None of the tests in the Diagnostics/Fixed Disk menu will intentionally write data to the drive but there is a chance that further damage can occur since the disk drive's heads will be moving across the surface of the platter(s). Any read-only disk diagnostic you run has the same chances of causing more errors if there has been some physical damage to the head/disk surface.

[RealBlackStuff]

Another thing to look into: if that broadband modem is USB2.0 (and also requires a USB2.0 port), you need to buy a PCMCIA USB2.0 adapter.
T30 has USB1.1 which cannot be changed.

[janniz]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

From the descriptions, it certainly sounds like the problem could be with your hard drive, or you may simply have an OS install that went wrong. You can troubleshoot it this way:

- download a copy of PC Doctor for DOS, either available as an .ISO image for burning onto a CD-R/CD-RW: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-56222 or as three files for making a floppy disk set here: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-54659
- once you have created the disk(s), boot the system with PC Doctor and run the Fixed Disk diagnostics. None of the tests in the Diagnostics/Fixed Disk menu will intentionally write data to the drive but there is a chance that further damage can occur since the disk drive's heads will be moving across the surface of the platter(s). Any read-only disk diagnostic you run has the same chances of causing more errors if there has been some physical damage to the head/disk surface.

will try that first. thanks!!

[janniz]

Another thing to look into: if that broadband modem is USB2.0 (and also requires a USB2.0 port), you need to buy a PCMCIA USB2.0 adapter.
T30 has USB1.1 which cannot be changed.

i don't have to worry about that since i tried the same broadband modem on my old PIII desktop which is still a USB1.1 and it works just fine.