Disk read error...

[MinionZombie]

Got one of those this morning - well, a succession of them, took me a good 15 minutes to finally get the rig going (after getting it going in Safe Mode, then shutting down).

Any ideas, suggestions and comments?

[krakenslayer]

Got one of those this morning - well, a succession of them, took me a good 15 minutes to finally get the rig going (after getting it going in Safe Mode, then shutting down).

Any ideas, suggestions and comments?

Disk read errors can be the result of physical damage to the disk itself, or problems with the file system. These are both repairable in-and-of themselves, but may hint at a deeper problem with the disk (potentially that it's reaching the end of its life and eventually going to give up for good).

Try booting into recovery mode using the Windows CD boot disk, if you have it:

Put the Windows disk in the drive before booting the computer up, and you should get an option to "press any key to boot from CD" or similar. Do it and when you see the appropriate option on screen press "r" to enter "repair or recovery options".

It will list all the installations of Windows you have - probably just one so select it. You will then be asked for an administrator password - if it's a home PC you likely won't have one so just press enter.

You will then be taken to a command prompt, if you remember the days of MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 this will look familiar.

Now you want to type "chkdsk c: /f /r" at the command prompt and press enter (replace c: with the drive letter of the problem disk). This will scan your drive for errors (both physical damage to the disk and file system errors) and attempt to repair/quarantine the damage. Adding the "/r" switch I mentioned also attempts to recover any lost data, but doubles the amount of time it will take to run (up to a couple of hours), so if you want a faster, less reliable fix then leave the "/r" off.


This may fix the problem but if it starts happening on a regular basis, then the disk is almost certainly getting ready to snuff it permanently so it's also a good idea to back up your data, just in case.

[MinionZombie]

Thanks for the tip.

Ever since my folks got this computer it's always had a sporadic problem of not being able to shut down fully - as in it'll get most of the way there, but not completely power down - but this is a sporadic and usually rare occurrence - most likely when you've shut down too soon after using say VLC or some other software (like the computer is still thinking about using it, thus preventing the shut down from completing) - so you have to hold the button to force it to power down.

Aye - one of the first things I did when I got it going again, was back up any files that needed backing up.

[krakenslayer]

Thanks for the tip.

Ever since my folks got this computer it's always had a sporadic problem of not being able to shut down fully - as in it'll get most of the way there, but not completely power down - but this is a sporadic and usually rare occurrence - most likely when you've shut down too soon after using say VLC or some other software (like the computer is still thinking about using it, thus preventing the shut down from completing) - so you have to hold the button to force it to power down.

Aye - one of the first things I did when I got it going again, was back up any files that needed backing up.

Yeah, switching it off if the hard disk is still trying to read can cause the disk head to scamble some data or even take a microscopic chip out of the surface of the disc. It's not the end of the world, but in my experience it can cause the problem you described and potentially reduce the lifetime of the drive, so if you can find a workaround to hitting the power button every time (like you said, waiting a while after closing VLC, for example) then it might be worth doing that.

If you have a spare hour or two at some point I would recommend running chkdsk anyway, even if it seems to be okay now. Just to help ensure the disk is still healthy and that future intermittant boot failures aren't caused by some pre-existing drive damage which might worsen if not checked.

[3pidemiC]

I would assume that your HDD is failing.

[krakenslayer]

I would assume that your HDD is failing.

It's definitely possible, but I wouldn't automatically assume it was the case unless it started happening regularly - my HHD did it a couple of times about two years back, but I sorted it out and I still use it as my primary HDD today. You could end up spending a lot of money on a new disk drive for nothing. As long as you've got your important stuff backed up on other media, you've got nothing to lose.

[DjfunkmasterG]

Sounds like that PC needs a re-format. One too many hard shutdowns has probably skewered the contents of C: Drive. Read Errors are most commonly the cause of bad data sectors, but sometimes it also means the HDD is at the end of its life.

try a reformat, if the read errors continue, replace the Hard disk

[MinionZombie]

Sounds like that PC needs a re-format. One too many hard shutdowns has probably skewered the contents of C: Drive. Read Errors are most commonly the cause of bad data sectors, but sometimes it also means the HDD is at the end of its life.

try a reformat, if the read errors continue, replace the Hard disk
Would probably rather not reformat, because the data could still all be moved over to a new drive - plus this rig is still within guarantee, so any fixing would be covered.

It's been running non-stop since this morning, will try later on and see how it's running - but considering that it's still under guarantee, I'd probably just say to my folks to get the drive copied over to and replaced by a new one (kinda like what I had to get done when my C Drive failed on one of my own computers - the content was copied over and all was good).

No doubt I'll update youze all as-and-when, ta for the input chaps. :)

[3pidemiC]

Most places, like Best Buy, have 30 day return policies on HDDs even if they are open. You could buy one and try it out and return it if it didn't correct the issue.

[DjfunkmasterG]

I just had a similar issue friday night, while doing post production on the film. Had to reformat, it took 51 reboots to get into WINDOWS once I did I started saving everything into different folders, then disconnected the extra drives, formatted and viola problem solved.


I will note that I think my issue stemmed from using VLC media player build 0.9.9. I had just installed it that night, upgrading from 0.9.8 and it started going wiggy. When I got everything back up and running I went back to build 0.9.8

[MinionZombie]

I'll keep that in mind - avoid 0.9.9 ... although I'm still using 0.8.6c :D

[Tricky]

try doing that disk scan (that takes bleedin' ages to run) where you right click on your hard disk icon,go to properties,tools,check for errors.You'll have to re-start the PC for it to run,but its worth a shot!

[DjfunkmasterG]

Disc Scan didn't help me whatsoever, even a program called SPin Rite couldn't do the trick, just too many bad sectors and I had to do the inevitable Format C:

Has been a blessing though... PC is running leaner. :D

[MinionZombie]

The computer which was the reason I originated this thread, has had another couple of those, and today it did it again - so if I'm offline for a day or two sometime soon then it's because the computer is in the shop getting fixed (still under warranty/guarantee - so the repair will be free).

Just FYI folks.