Disk read error

[ekdya]

Hi
I have A31 with XP on it. I leave it running all the time. I got up in the morning to find out many sounds coming from the hard drive.
I tried to reboot and got
A disk read error occured
Press Ctrl...

I opened and cleaned all the dust and got it cool. but it still does it.

please help
thx

[ajkula66]

Either your hard drive or the IDE controller has gone bad.

I'd be placing my bets on a corrupt hard drive, especially given the noise you've mentioned.

Borrow another hard drive and test the machine with it then let us know what happens.

Good luck.

[ekdya]

[quote="ajkula66"]Either your hard drive or the IDE controller has gone bad.

I'd be placing my bets on a corrupt hard drive, especially given the noise you've mentioned.

Borrow another hard drive and test the machine with it then let us know what happens.

Good luck.[/quote]


with another HD, there is no noise. is the bad hard drive recoverable?

[ajkula66]

Maybe, maybe not...

You need an USB enclosure to try and access it and hopefully save some files.

Good luck.

[ekdya]

[quote="ajkula66"]Maybe, maybe not...

You need an USB enclosure to try and access it and hopefully save some files.

Good luck.[/quote]

what are the chances?

[ajkula66]

Your guess is as good as mine...probably better...

[richk]

If the noises sound like grinding, the chances are poor. Repeated clicking noises (the click of death) may mean something is timing out. USB connections are slower and may work.

[schen]

what are the chances?

I've recently had a couple of experiences that might have bearing on your issue. I recovered files on a couple of different failed HDDs in the last month or so. One was a desktop drive and the other, a notebook drive. The desktop drive came to me in a machine that indicated it had failed (refused to boot to the HDD). I pulled it and connected it to my T42, but with one of those IDE connectors that had the external A/C brick. At first it wouldn't connect either and made a lot of noise, but I left it alone for several hours after which it had connected and allowed me to copy the files, BUT ONLY THE FILES DIRECTLY AND NOT THROUGH ANY FOLDERS! Any, I got them off and burned off for my friend who was happy and relieved.

The second was a failed laptop computer and using the same IDE connection cable (but w/o the brick, obviously since it has a notebook drive) wouldn't connect to my desktop machine either. However, I switched cables to one of those that comes with the cheap enclosures with the double USB on one end and it was able to get enough current to it to get the drive up and let me copy files. Again, it would not let me copy folders and all the contents, so I had to go through the tedious process of doing one folder at a time, but it got done and I had another happy and relieved friend.

Hope this helps.