A disk read error has occurred but disk can be read


  1. Ruzihm
    Posts : 3
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
       New #1

    A disk read error has occurred but disk can be read


    TLDR: I get the "A disk read error occurred" error but the system disk is readable and checks OK in the recovery USB.

    So, I have two hard drives--a terabyte drive with some data on it and a smaller drive with the win7 installation on it--and a USB drive. I made the USB drive into a recovery USB using the instructions here Installing Windows 7 System Recovery into USB Flash Drive | Raymond.CC Blog with the addendum found in the comments. I made a system image of the smaller drive via the control panel and then put the image in the terabyte drive. I then replaced my smaller hard drive with a new drive of a comparable size.

    In order to restore the drive, I booted into the recovery USB, formatted the new hard drive with ntfs, made it active, and ran
    wbadmin start recovery -version:xxx -items:C: -itemtype:Volume -backupTarget:C: -recoveryTarget:

    where C was the terabyte drive and D is the new drive. I may have the drives mixed up here, but I assure you I had them correct when I actually ran the command

    After a reset, I got some generic error so I went back into the bios, and set the new drive to be at the top of all boot lists, and then rebooted. It was at this time I got the above error. I feared that my drive was actually DOA, so I booted back into the recovery. I did a D:;dir and saw that all of my old files did indeed exist, so I figure it was a boot issue. I ran the boot repair utility in the recovery menu and it said there were no errors and I should restart. I didn't restart, and instead ran a chkdsk D: /f and found no errors. I did a bootsect /nt60 /all /mbr and restarted and still nothing changed. I even tried a "bcdedit /timeout 10" and I do not see the boot loader before getting this error. Not sure if that is expected or not but I'll throw that in here.

    Sorry about the font change here. Happened when I copied from the other site :)

    Any ideas? I can still view all of the files on the drive in question so I know it's not malfunctioning. I have a feeling it's a boot issue, but I can't find anything wrong. Looking forward to your assistance.
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

  3. gregrocker
    Posts : 50,642
       New #2

    If you have the Repair CD on USB flash, then boot into it and select Recover Using an Image, browse to the WindowsImageBackup file on 1tb, reimage it to the new HD.

    Or if you have WD or Seagate on either end, use their excellent free Acronis cloning app on the Downloads webpage for your model. Then just clone the old HD over to the new one without the 1tb plugged in.
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

  4. Ruzihm
    Posts : 3
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
    Thread Starter
       New #3

    For the first option, I tried that but received the error that it needs to format the drive that the recovery environment is on. I googled a bit and found that typical when recovering using a usb drive. That is why I used wbadmin instead.

    I'm hesitant to use third-party cloning software before I know why this isn't working. Especially since the old system drive was beginning to fail in the first place (i.e. among some other problems, it was only being detected by the bios on cold startups, and not on reboots). I'd rather try to solve this booting/formatting problem since the data is intact and already on the new drive.

    Edit: To illustrate how utterly close I am to this, I actually have to type in my password in order to enter the recovery environment. It is able to recognize my windows installation but the loader can not, apparently.
    Last edited by Ruzihm; 11 Jan 2011 at 21:58. Reason: clarification
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

  6. gregrocker
    Posts : 50,642
       New #4

    Boot the Win7 Repair CD, mark the Win7 partition Active using Diskpart: Partition - Mark as Active
    Then run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots to repair or write the System MBR to Win7: Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

    If this fails, I would run the HD maker's diag/repair full CD scan: HD Diagnostic followed by Disk Check from the Repair CD Command Line

    Next try wiping the target HD first from Repair CD, then Recover Using an Image:
    Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command
    System Image Recovery
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

  7. Ruzihm
    Posts : 3
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
    Thread Starter
       New #5

    I tried the thrice repair with no success, and so I will be trying the clean-all and reimage overnight and tomorrow. Crossing my fingers!
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

  8. gregrocker
    Posts : 50,642
       New #6

    If it fails then clean reinstall: re-install windows 7
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

  10. Bare Foot Kid
    Posts : 22,814
    W 7 64-bit Ultimate
       New #7

    Hello Ruzihm, welcome to Seven Forums!



    If you need to do a clean install you can use the Windows 7 installation disk to clear the HDD of any format configuration data if you have previously run a clean all by using the command clean it its place and then specific size partitions can then be created using this same tutorial at the link below.


    DISKPART : At PC Startup

    SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

 

  Related Discussions
Hello guys. :) I get problem today. I get win updates and i intsalled it. Update numbers was 19. Really it take long time.. Maybe about 30min. After that i start my computer and update continue. After that PC restart and i get get this erroro: A disk read error occurred. There is option press...
My system: 1-SSD (250 gb OS drive- nothing but programs and the OS) 4- HDD's (all 1tb WD velociraptors- 1 used as an image and back up- 1 for scratch disk and preview files- 2 for all video files) Windows 7 pro 12gb ram (tho I installed 24gb of new ram yesterday thinking the RAM might be bad-...
Disk read error occurred.
in Hardware & Devices

So, about 2 weeks or so ago my PC was working perfect, no issues whatsoever. Then about 2 - 3 days after I went on my PC and things just froze up, I couldn't shut down properly because it was just stuck froze. So I shut down using the button, but when I turned it back on I got "Disk Read Error...
Hi, A few months ago I bought an Acer Aspire 5745G laptop. Everything was working fine up until a few weeks ago. I noticed that it had suddenly become a lot slower. I didn’t use my laptop for about a day and a half, because I was busy with other things, and when I turned it on, the...
A disk read error occurred
in Installation & Setup

Please help me. I tried to make a small 7gb partition on a separate drive and it worked fine. I had already had this drive which is a 1tb drive partitioned as follows: 500bg and 500gb. So I booted using my xp disk and it part. and when it restarted I got the following: "a disk read error occurred....
Our Sites
Site Links
About Us
Windows 7 Forums is an independent web site and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Microsoft Corporation. "Windows 7" and related materials are trademarks of Microsoft Corp.

 © Designer Media Ltd
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 10:25.
Find Us