A Disk Read Error Has Occured

Sindragosa · 12 Jul 2009

Hiya. I have been using Windows 7 7100 for about a month or so now. I was using my computer like usual, nothing out of the ordinary, when it started running very slowly. I rebooted the machine, and got this message:

DISK FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK THEN PRESS ENTER.

I did that, and got this:

"Windows has encountered a problem communicating with a device connected to your computer.

This error can be caused by unplugging a removable storage device such as an external USB drive while the device is in use, or by faulty hardware such as a hard drive or CD-ROM drive that is failing. Make sure any removable storage is properly connected and then restart your computer.

If you continue to receive this error message, contact the hardware manufacturer.

Status: Oxc00000e9

Info: An unexpected I/O error has occurred. "

After that, I went on to run startup repair. I fixed it, went on to using my computer until the same thing happened again. I did the same process I did above, but the power went out while it was repairing, and the computer shut off. When I started it up again, I got:

A Disk Read Error Has Occurred.
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.

I can't get past this point. I would really love to save the data I have on there. Is there anything I can do to fix this problem?

7echno7im · 12 Jul 2009

Hate to say it but your drive may be failing. Sounds pretty classic, especially with it slowing down.

Is is your system drive with your OS installation?

If you are constantly getting this error and cannot boot in to Windows, see if the drive actually is still showing up in your BIOS.
Have you tried seating the drive in another SATA/IDE port in case the port/controller is failing?

My suggestion if this all fails is to remove it and throw it in a another PC if you have one as a slave drive and boot and see if you can pull the data off. I would then run a checkdisk /r on it.

If yoo do not have a second PC, I would recommend getting a Knoppix live disk and booting from it and then you can explore the drive and pull the data off you need and save to either a USB device or use the network support to transfer the files to another PC.