Serious problem: A disk read error occurred

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 screen went almost immediately black and two white phrases turned up on the screen:

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

I pressed ctrl+alt+del a few times, but absolutely nothing happened. The same text appeared again. So the only way I could turn my computer off is by pressing the power button (the one you use to turn on the computer). What I noticed is that the computer immediately turned off. Like, the second I pressed it. From my limited experience with computers it takes quite a few seconds to turn off a computer that way.

Anyway, I need help. I can’t access anything on my laptop and I have about 550GB of files on there and no back-up. I always keep back-ups but my brother had to borrow my external hard disk drive, so I copied all the files on to my laptop. Needless to say that the timing couldn’t have been worse. I’ve been googling this problem to find a solution that works with my laptop, but so far I haven’t had any luck.

So can you guys help a newbie? Any help is very much appreciated! Thanks in advance. Jay10.

TVeblen said:

Hello Jay10. Welcome to the Forum.

Thanks! :)

TVeblen;1176009Can you enter your BIOS? Usually press F2 at boot to do so.[/QUOTE said:

You want to check in the settings to see if the hard drive is recognized by the BIOS. Don't make any changes at this time and "Discard Changes and Exit" when you are done. Let us know.

Also, check to be sure there is no disk in the optical drive.

Yes, I can enter my BIOS (although I have to press it really fast, because otherwise the disk read error shows up).
There isn't a disk in my optical drive.

How do I know if the hard drive is recognized by the BIOS (silly question, I know)?

I don't know if this is any help, but the default boot priority order is this:

1. IDE0 : Toshiba MK6465GSX
2. IDE1 : HL-DT-STDVDRAM GT31N
3. USB FDD :
4. Network Boot: Atheros Boot Agent :
5. USB HDD :
6. USB CDROM :

Hello Jay10, welcome.

The Toshiba on IDE0 is your hard drive, recognized in bios. You could try the manufacturer recovery disks (if you made them, but you should try the method below to try to save your data first) to see if that will work, but it sounds like the HD is bad. Since the laptop is only a few months old (and if the recovery disks don't work), I recommend calling Acer support and letting them handle it. It should be a warranty situation.

As far as your data, I don't know how computer literate you are, but you could try booting into a live linux CD (doesn't have to be installed to your HD) such as ubuntu, and, if the drive is recognized, you may be able to copy the files to your external drive. The process is not too complicated, and the Ubuntu CD will boot you to a desktop that you should be able to figure out. Here is a link:

Download | Ubuntu

Just be sure not to choose 'Install'.

Let us know how it goes.

James

Why are you guys telling him to make changes in his BIOS when his hard drive is clearly failing? The more changes he makes, the less likely it is that he will be able to recover any data from the drive.

To the OP, you should remove the drive from the laptop, and using a USB cable or enclosure that you can order online or purchase in a computer shop, connect it to another computer. From there, you MAY be able to retrieve your files.

MacGyvr said:

Why are you guys telling him to make changes in his BIOS when his hard drive is clearly failing? The more changes he makes, the less likely it is that he will be able to recover any data from the drive.

To the OP, you should remove the drive from the laptop, and using a USB cable or enclosure that you can order online or purchase in a computer shop, connect it to another computer. From there, you MAY be able to retrieve your files.

Would you mind quoting the text that advises him to make any changes? I must be missing that.

James

James Colbert said:

MacGyvr said:

Why are you guys telling him to make changes in his BIOS when his hard drive is clearly failing? The more changes he makes, the less likely it is that he will be able to recover any data from the drive.

To the OP, you should remove the drive from the laptop, and using a USB cable or enclosure that you can order online or purchase in a computer shop, connect it to another computer. From there, you MAY be able to retrieve your files.

Would you mind quoting the text that advises him to make any changes? I must be missing that.

James

Okay, what is the point of involving the BIOS at all? Does it actually matter if the computer sees the drive? The OPs concern is his data. The BIOS isn't going to get him access to his data.

MacGyvr said:

Okay, what is the point of involving the BIOS at all? Does it actually matter if the computer sees the drive? The OPs concern is his data. The BIOS isn't going to get him access to his data.

James Colbert said:

As far as your data, I don't know how computer literate you are, but you could try booting into a live linux CD (doesn't have to be installed to your HD) such as ubuntu, and, if the drive is recognized, you may be able to copy the files to your external drive. The process is not too complicated, and the Ubuntu CD will boot you to a desktop that you should be able to figure out. Here is a link:

Download | Ubuntu

Just be sure not to choose 'Install'.

Let us know how it goes.

James

This doesn't count?

James Colbert said:

MacGyvr said:

Okay, what is the point of involving the BIOS at all? Does it actually matter if the computer sees the drive? The OPs concern is his data. The BIOS isn't going to get him access to his data.

James Colbert said:

As far as your data, I don't know how computer literate you are, but you could try booting into a live linux CD (doesn't have to be installed to your HD) such as ubuntu, and, if the drive is recognized, you may be able to copy the files to your external drive. The process is not too complicated, and the Ubuntu CD will boot you to a desktop that you should be able to figure out. Here is a link:

Download | Ubuntu

Just be sure not to choose 'Install'.

Let us know how it goes.

James

This doesn't count?

Sure, if you want to give him something very complicated to work with. Do we even know if he knows what Linux is?