Disk read error

[SebC]

Hi guys, anyone out there who can help me???
My 1-year old son managed to do a hard shutdown on our computer, he loves buttons....
And now it will not boot, it does the bios check and the comes up with "A disk read error occurred" message. I can boot on the Vista DVD and run Startup repair, which tells me that everything is working fine, no errors or faults, and I can run check-disk with the same results, everything is working. But I can't boot... I guess some files has been corrupted, but I can't find out what

Does anyone know where I should look or what might be wrong??

Cheers,
Seb.

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

Can you boot into safe mode? What errors are on the screen. If possible, I would backup your data to an external source. Check your device manager to see if any drivers or devices are not functioning.

 

[SebC]

Hi, thanks for your reply!

No, I can't boot into safe mode, I don't get that far. After the initial bios test it comes up with "a disk read error, press ctrl+alt+del to restart". I can boot on the Vista DVD and I thought I could run an upgrade, but that option is disabled (It can only be run from inside Windows) and I want to avoid a clean install, as I have a lot of programs and stuff I would like to keep. I haven't backed up any data yet, but I'll try and get hold of a external hd chassi and plug it into my laptop, to save some of the data.

Seb.

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

I would open the chassis and check the cables. Turn on the computer, do you hear any strange sounds from the drive. Next, install a second hard drive. Install Vista to it and see if you can see the first hard drive. Sometimes, the boot sector gets damaged and does not allow it to boot but you can access it as a non-boot drive.

You can try a repair mode fix. Boot the DVD. Get to an administrative command prompt and run chkdsk c:/r

/r is repair mode.

 

[SebC]

Ok, so if the boot sector is damaged you're stuffed?? Is a clean install the only option then?
I have unplugged everything and plugged it back in and I have run chkdsk c: /r several times, but without any luck.

Thanks again for your replies!

Seb.

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

This is a laptop? That makes it harder to fix. Did you try turning off the laptop and reseating the hard drive on its cable. try clearing the CMOS and resetting it to default. It could be corrupted.

 

[SebC]

No, it's a desktop. I tried to clear CMOS, same error..
I have tried the SFC but it only comes up with "Windows Resource Protection could not start the repair service". I guess you can't run it unless you are logged in.
The weird thing is that both chkdsk and Startup repair says that everything is working fine. Startup repair evens says "Root cause found: Boot status indicates that OS booted successfully"

 

[SebC]

I managed to fix it!:D
bootrec /fixboot did the trick!

Thanks again that you took your time to reply!!

Seb.

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

Good to hear.

I was in Stockholm. Nice city.

 

[A7X808]

I think this is the same problem that I was having...thanks for the post