A disk read error occurred...

T-800 · 26 Feb 2015 at 14:23

Less than a month ago, my main HDD was failing. The PC was starting with the following error...

A disk read error has occurred
Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart

Restarting it would result in the same error appearing, until SMART picked up an imminent failure of the HDD and advised me to back up the data. So, a couple weeks ago, I cloned the HDD onto a new Samsung 850 Pro SSD, and all was working fine until I switched on the PC today, and was presented with...

A disk read error has occurred
Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart

Any clues what could be going on here? Perhaps a SATA port failure on my motherboard? Or is something inside my PC killing my drives?

ED209 · 26 Feb 2015 at 15:02

might be a idea to change the sata port and sata cable and see if this helps at all.

what sata port are you using? sata 2 or 3?

T-800 · 26 Feb 2015 at 17:23

ED209 said:
might be a idea to change the sata port and sata cable and see if this helps at all.

what sata port are you using? sata 2 or 3?

I could change the cable, no problem.

How do I tell which SATA port I'm using? :confused:

Excuse the ignorance...

T-800 · 26 Feb 2015 at 22:39

ED209 said:
what sata port are you using? sata 2 or 3?

In the Boot Menu, it says SATA 1.

After switching on the PC again, it now says...

BOOTMGR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

If I boot with the Windows 7 disc, no operating system or partition is present in the System Recovery Options. If I go to a command prompt, I'm presented with the directory path "X:\Sources". X is not a drive letter I have ever specified. If I type "c:", it tells me "The system cannot find the drives specified.". If I run BootRec.exe, FixMbr and FixBoot "cannot find the path specified", and ScanOS and RebuildBcd tell me "Total identified Windows installations: 0".

So I'm guessing that when I cloned the HDD to the SSD, it didn't clone the MBR, or whatever. Is there any way of repairing this, given the current situation? Or am I going to need to put the SSD in a caddy, backup any data I want to save to another HDD, then reformat the SSD and perform a fresh install of Windows 7?

tres_kun · 26 Feb 2015 at 23:39

It sounds like corrupt or unreadable data of the hdd
A failing mechanical HDD will do what you have described

SSd from my knowledge will just fail spectacularly
It might be possible of data loss from power failure

First i will check is the os can recognise the drive
Start the Windows install process and check if windows can detect the drive

Next will be to backup stuff unless you are really good and have equipment to fix the problem
And atempt to reinstall os

ED209 · 27 Feb 2015 at 07:43

T-800 said:
I could change the cable, no problem.

How do I tell which SATA port I'm using? Excuse the ignorance...

in the magician software it will show you what port you are using and if you have achi enabled, below is mine running on a sata 2 port with achi enabled in the bios.

bledd · 27 Feb 2015 at 08:55

Does it say this during boot or in Windows?

Sounds like the during boot message..

When you installed Windows, did you remove all other hard drives for the install? If not, the boot part of your Windows install may be on another drive.

Give us more info.

If you don't know how to say which SATA port you're using, take a photo of your SATA ports, upload it on imgur and give us a link to it.. Along with your motherboard model number.

T-800 · 27 Feb 2015 at 09:15

ED209 said:
in the magician software it will show you what port you are using and if you have achi enabled, below is mine running on a sata 2 port with achi enabled in the bios.

Aha. Currently, I'm not able to get into Windows, but will note that down for future reference.

bledd. said:
Does it say this during boot or in Windows?

Sounds like the during boot message..

The message pops up during the boot. I'm unable to get into Windows.

bledd. said:
When you installed Windows, did you remove all other hard drives for the install? If not, the boot part of your Windows install may be on another drive.

Give us more info.

The SSD is a clone of my original mechanical HDD, and was cloned using the Inateck two bay docking station in its "offline" mode, so not attached to any PC or laptop during the cloning procedure.

bledd. said:
If you don't know how to say which SATA port you're using, take a photo of your SATA ports, upload it on imgur and give us a link to it.. Along with your motherboard model number.

OK, I will do that later on today, and report back.

ED209 · 27 Feb 2015 at 09:28

is there anything on the drive you need to get from it at all?

if the drive is not detected leave the SSD disconnected for about 15 mins from power and the sata cable and then give it another try.

after I did a secure erase on my evo 840 I had issues with it being detected and installing windows but looking in to it the ssd can enter a freeze state so disconnecting the power to the SSD and the sata cable for 15 mins sorted the issue

T-800 · 27 Feb 2015 at 09:47

ED209 said:
is there anything on the drive you need to get from it at all?

Some files on my Desktop, Documents and Downloads folders, as well as my Steam saves, but otherwise, I could just start from scratch. Just a pain, as I had to backup and reformat my original mech drive not so long ago (before SMART said it was expecting an imminent failure), as something similar happened, preventing Windows from booting up.

ED209 said:
if the drive is not detected leave the SSD disconnected for about 15 mins from power and the sata cable and then give it another try.

after I did a secure erase on my evo 840 I had issues with it being detected and installing windows but looking in to it the ssd can enter a freeze state so disconnecting the power to the SSD and the sata cable for 15 mins sorted the issue

The boot up sequence, BIOS and Boot Menu see the drive. But if I boot with the Windows 7 disc, the drive is nowhere to be found.

ED209 · 27 Feb 2015 at 09:56

ok, try and disconnect the drive for 15 mins from power and data and then give it another try and see if it works.

I had issues where the SSD was seen in the bios etc but then went I went to install windows it failed because it was in a freeze state, may help you out with your issue.

I also think at some point during my rebuild I had the same issue where windows installer wouldn't see the drive either but would find it everywhere else.

bledd · 27 Feb 2015 at 10:38

When you did the original Windows install, were there any other drives connected?

T-800 · 27 Feb 2015 at 11:20

ED209 said:
ok, try and disconnect the drive for 15 mins from power and data and then give it another try and see if it works.

I had issues where the SSD was seen in the bios etc but then went I went to install windows it failed because it was in a freeze state, may help you out with your issue.

I also think at some point during my rebuild I had the same issue where windows installer wouldn't see the drive either but would find it everywhere else.

Should I disconnect the drive, power up the PC, wait 15 minutes, power down, then reconnect and power back up again? Or just disconnect, wait 15 minutes, then power up?

bledd. said:
When you did the original Windows install, were there any other drives connected?

Yes, two storage drives.

bledd · 27 Feb 2015 at 11:24

Chances are the boot files are on one of those then..

When installing Windows, only ever have one drive connected.

-

Possible fix..

On any machine, install..

Macrium Reflect Free, create a bootable CD/usb stick in Macrium.

Boot form this CD/usb, use the 'repair/fix Windows startup issues' option once Macrium loads up. It seems better than the Windows boot repair tool.

T-800 · 27 Feb 2015 at 16:15

bledd. said:
Chances are the boot files are on one of those then..

When installing Windows, only ever have one drive connected.

Interesting. Why is this exactly?

bledd. said:
Possible fix..

On any machine, install..

Macrium Reflect Free, create a bootable CD/usb stick in Macrium.

Boot form this CD/usb, use the 'repair/fix Windows startup issues' option once Macrium loads up. It seems better than the Windows boot repair tool.

My other machine is a MacBook. Any Mac-compatible alternatives to Macrium?

T-800 · 27 Feb 2015 at 20:09

ED209 said:
ok, try and disconnect the drive for 15 mins from power and data and then give it another try and see if it works.

Alright, I tried the 15 minute trick, and System Recovery Options picked up the Windows 7 partition. So, I proceeded with going into a command prompt, and tried BootRec.exe again, to no avail -- it still wasn't able to find any Windows installations, despite the partition now being recognised. I then tried Startup Repair, which found some errors on the disk, and required me to restart. I restarted, booted back into System Recovery Options, and saw that the partition now read 0 bytes. At this point, the system froze, and didn't allow me to continue. I tried restarting several times, but every time I got into System Recovery Options, the system froze. Thinking I would just backup and reformat -- start from scratch -- I switched off the PC, took out the SSD, popped it into my caddy, and plugged the caddy into my MacBook. The SSD is now named "System Reserved", and thinks it has a capacity of 104.9MB. It's a 512GB SSD.

Any ideas what's going on here? Is anything salvageable at all from this point?

T-800 · 28 Feb 2015 at 02:56

Managed to recover the data using Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery, then put the SSD back into my PC (without any other drives connected), booted into the Windows 7 installation with my Windows 7 disc, deleted the partitions on the SSD, and installed a fresh copy of Windows 7. After the PC restarted, guess what?

A disk read error has occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

So I opened up the PC, took out the old SATA cable connected to my SSD -- which I'd confirmed was using my motherboard's SATA 1 port -- then replaced it with a spare, unused (still in its packaging) SATA cable that came with my motherboard, and voila, Windows booted up.

Christ on a stick.

I just hope everything works without a hitch until I can afford to upgrade.

ED209 · 28 Feb 2015 at 08:35

T-800 said:
Managed to recover the data using Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery, then put the SSD back into my PC (without any other drives connected), booted into the Windows 7 installation with my Windows 7 disc, deleted the partitions on the SSD, and installed a fresh copy of Windows 7. After the PC restarted, guess what?

A disk read error has occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

So I opened up the PC, took out the old SATA cable connected to my SSD -- which I'd confirmed was using my motherboard's SATA 1 port -- then replaced it with a spare, unused (still in its packaging) SATA cable that came with my motherboard, and voila, Windows booted up.

Christ on a stick.

I just hope everything works without a hitch until I can afford to upgrade.

glad its sorted, did say to change the sata cable in my first post lol

bledd · 28 Feb 2015 at 11:01

I assumed you'd tried another cable...