Disk error on startup

BrenOS · 8 May 2006 at 22:52

After the bios and just as the boot sector is being read...

Disk error detected, press ctrl alt del to restart.

What can I try? This hard drive won't boot at all.

Can I re-install just the boot sector? How?

Does an fdisk and format generally fix this?

tedaC · 8 May 2006 at 22:55

If you have a secondary computer - you could put it in as a secondary hard drive on that then run "chkdsk /f" on it - that should fix it.

If not im not sure srry

ChrisLX200 · 8 May 2006 at 22:59

BrenOS said:
After the bios and just as the boot sector is being read...

Disk error detected, press ctrl alt del to restart.

What can I try? This hard drive won't boot at all.

Can I re-install just the boot sector? How?

Does an fdisk and format generally fix this?

It could be just the master boot record that is corrupt, but you need a bootable XP disk to repair it. Boot from the CD, go into repair console, and there are 2 commands you can try... 'fixboot' and 'fixmbr'. The first command will write a new partition boot sector, the second repairs the master boot record. One or other should sort the problem...

BrenOS · 9 May 2006 at 01:11

tedaC said:
If you have a secondary computer - you could put it in as a secondary hard drive on that then run "chkdsk /f" on it - that should fix it.

If not im not sure srry

Unable to do this for the moment. On my laptop currently.

ChrisLX200 said:
It could be just the master boot record that is corrupt, but you need a bootable XP disk to repair it. Boot from the CD, go into repair console, and there are 2 commands you can try... 'fixboot' and 'fixmbr'. The first command will write a new partition boot sector, the second repairs the master boot record. One or other should sort the problem...

I can try this. Which is the least destructive? ie Which should I try first?

Obviously I'd like to avoid having to fdisk and format. Worst comes to the worst it'll be going in a friends machine to recover the data. But if I can get it booted up I can do this myself to my external hard drive.

Thanks again

ChrisLX200 · 9 May 2006 at 07:28

Fixmbr I've used myself in anger, and it just did as advertised - no damage to the drive contents. Neither command should cause any damage to existing data, it should just affect the boot sector - provided the partiton table is not damaged. If it is, you'll get a warning about whether you want to continue.