I have a Dell XPS M1530 Laptop, running Vista Home Premium 64bit. I have support from Dell but they have been unable/unwilling to save my data in the past so I'm exploring my options before calling them.

My computer threw an error and then froze so that I couldn't close any open programs or access task manager or shutdown/restart. I was forced shutdown by holding the power button. On turning the computer back on, I got a "disk read error, use ctrl/alt/del to restart" response. Using ctrl/alt/del simply causes the same error to repeat.

I can access F2 and F12, but not F8. I have tried both my Dell Vista Reinstallation CD and a Recovery CD made using the tutorial on this site (found here: Create a Recovery Disc). In both cases, I have to use F12 to get it to boot from the disk. It says "loading Windows files" and then shows the little bar with Microsoft below it. Afterwards, however, it never gets to the system recovery/repair options screen...or indeed any request for input at all. It simply shows a black screen and the CPU seems to be working at something but never does anything. Occasionally, I will hear a little blip sound.

Any ideas? Like most folks, I'm desperately hoping to retrieve data I haven't backed up in a week or two, some of it absolutely irreplaceable! If anyone has any suggestions for getting in to backup data in any way, I'd be immensely grateful!



Thanks!
Jen

Originally Posted by JStevenson

I have a Dell XPS M1530 Laptop, running Vista Home Premium 64bit. I have support from Dell but they have been unable/unwilling to save my data in the past so I'm exploring my options before calling them.

My computer threw an error and then froze so that I couldn't close any open programs or access task manager or shutdown/restart. I was forced shutdown by holding the power button. On turning the computer back on, I got a "disk read error, use ctrl/alt/del to restart" response. Using ctrl/alt/del simply causes the same error to repeat.

I can access F2 and F12, but not F8. I have tried both my Dell Vista Reinstallation CD and a Recovery CD made using the tutorial on this site (found here: Create a Recovery Disc). In both cases, I have to use F12 to get it to boot from the disk. It says "loading Windows files" and then shows the little bar with Microsoft below it. Afterwards, however, it never gets to the system recovery/repair options screen...or indeed any request for input at all. It simply shows a black screen and the CPU seems to be working at something but never does anything. Occasionally, I will hear a little blip sound.

Any ideas? Like most folks, I'm desperately hoping to retrieve data I haven't backed up in a week or two, some of it absolutely irreplaceable! If anyone has any suggestions for getting in to backup data in any way, I'd be immensely grateful!

Thanks!
Jen

Well I'm definetely to inexperienced to help you but maybe this forum post can: "A disk read error occurred Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart"

Hi all,

Here's an update several weeks later. I was unable to use any Recovery CD with Windows on it, including the Windows 7 one. It would always hang after the Microsoft green bar with a black screen, never getting to any input options of any sort.

Presently, Dell replaced my hard drive but let me temporarily keep the old one. I have it in an external enclosure hooked up to my computer via USB. I have tried running a variety of programs with little success. I definitely have physical issues with this drive.

I am currently using a Knoppix boot CD (a variation of Linux) to run another program called Photorec that may be able to gather and reconstruct files even from badly damaged drives. It is a painfully slow process...it has already been running for almost a week and isn't even to the full recovery stage yet. There are pros and cons to this process. Pros include possible data recovery and that it doesn't write to the damaged disk and risk writing over the data you want to recover. Cons include the slow time and the fact that recovered files will not be named in any familiar way. They are given a generic file name of some sort and I will have to dig through them all to find the ones I want. But if I get my data, I'm okay with that.

Thanks for the suggestions earlier. I'll post whether this succeeds or not...

Thanks!
Jen