Skip to main content

hard drive - Error "a disk read error occurred" on Windows XP

Around a week ago I sometimes had trouble bringing up Windows XP profile (so it would boot into a temporary profile directory). I ran CHKDSK three days ago on boot and didn't find any bad blocks.


Starting yesterday, my desktop (Windows XP SP3) became really weird. After I booted up it seems like something was eating up my CPU (though I didn't see anything suspecting in the resource monitor fired up using Ctrl + Alt + Delete). The computer booted very slowly, and applications started very slowly. My real video files which used to play smoothly was lagging. My phone dial up had trouble logging into most web sites while some (like Slashdot and google) seemed to be more or less fine.


Was there problem with the network? My girlfriend's netbook running behind a home gateway (which dialed pppoe for her) connect to the web just fine! So this ruled out the possibility.


Today I booted up again, and the same thing happened. At first I suspected it was a virus. So I changed my BIOS settings to boot up on another physical disk (the OS wasn't MS Windows). Something was very weird, it still had the same network connectivity issues. I scanned my Windows C partition. Clam AntiVirus claimed that there was this executable resting on my Windows desktop directory containing a trojan whose name I cannot recall now. I tried to go into the directory to check the file, but I suddenly couldn't get in. So I rebooted the computer and tried to switch back to Windows only to find out I cannot boot!! It says "a disk read error occurred" and ask me to press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart.


I wasn't suspecting a disk error! The disk is relatively new (two years and four months). I ran CHKDSK at boot around three days ago. The event log told me I have 0 bad block! So I am now in shock that suddenly I can no longer boot, nor mounting the disk from the other OS. I tried to unplug the SATA cables and replug it to no avail.


So here are my questions!




  1. I don't know why the network connectivity is weird as it is. If it is the trouble with Windows or the hard disk, then this other OS on the other disk should run just fine. But it turns out that it runs fast, but network is still a problem.




  2. Given that there probably isn't any bad block in this disk (right?? I hope), and I desperate need the data in there and I have no back up, is there a good chance that I can bring it to some shop to recover my data?




  3. Could there also be other possibilities that problem is not related to virus or disk? Such as a motherboard problem?




  4. What can I do myself to recover the data?



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

How do I transmit a single hexadecimal value serial data in PuTTY using an Alt code?

I am trying to sent a specific hexadecimal value across a serial COM port using PuTTY. Specifically, I want to send the hex codes 9C, B6, FC, and 8B. I have looked up the Alt codes for these and they are 156, 182, 252, and 139 respectively. However, whenever I input the Alt codes, a preceding hex value of C2 is sent before 9C, B6, and 8B so the values that are sent are C2 9C, C2 B6, and C2 8B. The value for FC is changed to C3 FC. Why are these values being placed before the hex value and why is FC being changed altogether? To me, it seems like there is a problem internally converting the Alt code to hex. Is there a way to directly input hex values without using Alt codes in PuTTY? Answer What you're seeing is just ordinary text character set conversion. As far as PuTTY is concerned, you are typing (and reading) text , not raw binary data, therefore it has to convert the text to bytes in whatever configured character set before sending it over the wire. In other words, when y...
Post a Comment
Read more

linux - Extract/save a mail attachment using bash

Using normal bash tools (ie, built-ins or commonly-available command-line tools), is it possible, and how to extract/save attachments on emails? For example, say I have a nightly report which arrives via email but is a zip archive of several log files. I want to save all those zips into a backup directory. How would I accomplish that? Answer If you're aiming for portability, beware that there are several different versions of mail(1) and mailx(1) . There's a POSIX mailx command, but with very few requirements. And none of the implementations I have seem to parse attachments anyway. You might have the mpack package . Its munpack command saves all parts of a MIME message into separate files, then all you have to do is save the interesting parts and clean up the rest. There's also metamail . An equivalent of munpack is metamail -wy .
Post a Comment
Read more

ubuntu - Why does my USB hdd returns SG_IO: bad/missing sense data?

I am able to boot and run commands from external USB hdd; the message in question appears for about 45 seconds then booting continues. GRUB2 is installed on internal HDD. When choosing to boot directly to /dev/sdb the message doesn't appear, however boot time is about the same as booting to internal HDD. /dev/sdb: Timing cached reads: 1018 MB in 2.00 seconds = 508.97 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 80 MB in 3.03 seconds = 26.37 MB/sec pfeiffep@de:~$ sudo hdparm -i /dev/sdb /dev/sdb: SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]: 70 00 05 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 HDIO_GET_IDENTITY failed: Invalid argument Gparted correctly identifies the drive as SAMSUNG MP0402H. Any ideas how to remedy the HDIO & SG_IO messages?
Post a Comment
Read more

Desktop reboots itself on sleep or hibernate

I have been using an ASUS M2NPV-VM motherboard for main home desktop workstation, operating Windows Vista x64. This computer has right from day one not been able to enter hibernate or standby; after Windows performs its final actions and brings the machine down, it would automatically revive itself for a reboot. Updating to the second latest BIOS (1201)has not helped (the latest BIOS revision would induce video refresh problems rendering it unusable). I have been reading related discussions on incidents similar to mine to no avail of a true workable solution. They appear to be more speculative guesses rather than actual knowledge on the inner workings of motherboard hardware. Does anybody have any electronic engineering experience on PC energy-saving standards to provide a more informed opinion how to go about getting this to work? More stories: this motherboard could not even reboot properly the first thing i used it. It was due to refresh rate of the onboard GPU, which had no influe...
Post a Comment
Read more