Hard Drive Error

sorn21

sorn21

sorn21

Soldato
Joined
12 Nov 2008
Posts
3,378
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T.O.
Hi guys,

Was just playing a wee game of L4D2, when all of a sudden the game starts stuttering, spluttering, then dies.

Restart the rig and I get a message after post saying;

"Drive Read Error
Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart"

What does this meeeean?!

I restarted and the same message flashed up, and again, and again.
Opened up case, reseated drive, reseated SATA cables, restarted first time.

my boot drive is a 500GB F3,
any ideas? :)
 
Sounds like something has been corrupted leaving you unbootable, if you have access to a Windows C.D. you can run CHKDSK to do a scan of the drive from recovery mode. This has helped a couple of times for me, I can't say what caused the corruption in the first place mind.

CHKDSK

You could also try FIXBOOT and FIXMBR from the C.D. Here's hoping it will be that simple, else you could be looking at a failing drive.

Good luck.
 
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Sorry, once I removed and reseated connectors, then it booted first time.

Works no bother now, but I'm worried about whats causing it, will it happen again, and is this a warning?!
 
Ah sorry, I misread.

It could have simply been a loose cable, one of my drives has failed before and after a S.M.A.R.T. scan there was an unusually high number of power cycles (one symptom of a loose power cable). It worked fine after some cable checking.

I would run a S.M.A.R.T. scan on the disk to be on the safe side. I recommend SpeedFan, I find the in-depth analysis useful.
 
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At the risk of sounding like an idiot, whats a power cycle?
Is it to do with the disk spinning up, but not getting to operating speed?

Thanks for your suggestions btw :)
 
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