Help! Disk read error

[johnwillyums]

Hi,

I seem to have made a mess here.
I had Vista 64x and W7 build 7057 set up in a dual boot with W7 on a 30Gb partition.
Acting on advice in another thread I decide to shrink my Vista partition and expand my W7 partition using GParted.
That seemed to go ok and I shrank Vista partition to about 400GB and expanded the W7 partition to about a 100GB.

However, I now cannot boot at all. When I try I get "A disk read error occurred. press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart".

When I try this nothing happens and I have to do a power shutdown.

I have attempted repairs using my Vista disk and that tells me nothing is wrong. Likewise I tried repair with my W7 disk with the same result. Both tell me that the system booted succesfully.

I then tried reinstalling both Vista and W7 to their respective partitions and I still get no boot and a Disk read error message.

I have been in the BIOS and tried every boot device option but still nowhere.

I'm writing this from the Asus Splashtop OS that came with my mobo. I thought it was a bit of a gimmick but it might just save me now!

Can anybody help, John

 

[jfar]

Hi,if you reinstall Win 7 ,and when you come to part where it gives you a choice to do an upgrade,or a new install choose a new install, and it will make a folder called Windows Old, so you wont loose everything ,so at least you are back in and you can go from there,I hope this helps.

 

[johnwillyums]

Thanks Jfar,

I already did that. I have a new install on both partitions so I have an "old windows" folder on both partitions.

But I cannot boot into anything except this minilinux OS that Asus provide with the P5Q Pro.

Whatever I try I get the disk read error message and pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del does not restart the system.

I don't think I can download anything with this Expressgate OS either.

I've been trying to fix this for about 5 hours and I'm stuck.

Thanks, John

 

[Orbital Shark]

Thanks Jfar,

I already did that. I have a new install on both partitions so I have an "old windows" folder on both partitions.

But I cannot boot into anything except this minilinux OS that Asus provide with the P5Q Pro.

Whatever I try I get the disk read error message and pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del does not restart the system.

I don't think I can download anything with this Expressgate OS either.

I've been trying to fix this for about 5 hours and I'm stuck.

Thanks, John

You've mentioned trying various 'Boot device options' in your first post but have you looked through all options in the BIOS? There is normally an option relating the OS (advanced settings usualy). I could be wrong but i've noticed similar options on a lot of PC's i've repaired.

 

[jfar]

When it shows you at the begining which OS is going to start,pick WIN7 and immediatly press F8, and that should give you repair options.

 

[johnwillyums]

Thanks for the replies guys,

Orbital Shark- I just checked everything in my BIOS. There is nothing relating to OS in anywhere not even advanced options.

jfar.- I don't get a boot choice at all. The system starts and I get the Asus page then I get a blinking cursor and, after a few seconds, the disk read error message.

By booting from my Vista disk and then clicking repair I get a box with the following in:

Windows 7 112172MB (e New volume
Microsoft Windows Vista 364764MB (d Local disk
Microsoft Windows Vista 364764MB (d Local disk
Windows 7 112172MB (e New volume

I have tried the repair option with both disks (vista and W7) and it tells me there is nothing wrong.

Wish I'd left it alone but I wanted to have more room for W7 so I could install more programmes and use it as my main OS.
I'm completely lost, John

Just noticed these smilies. They are supposed to be colons. Must be some foible of this Asus expressgate emergancy os

 

[jfar]

Ok when it is booting up, keep pressing F8 it should get you to where I said ,keep trying it a few times,because sometimes you miss it if your a second late pressing the F8 key.Also this might be a stupid question but did you try Safe Mode.

 

[johnwillyums]

Ok jfar. I'll try that. Do you mean with my W7 or Vista Disk in the drive or just as is?

I can't get to boot let alone boot into Safe Mode. As I say I get nowhere near a boot or boot choice just straight to the error message, John

 

[jfar]

Dont put any discs in the drive and let it try to start that way, and see what happens.

 

[johnwillyums]

Ok Tried that. Shut down and then restarted. no disks in the drive. Pressed F8 and got a boot device box. Chose Samsung HDD pressed enter and got Disk read error, Tried pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart and nothing happened.
I'm truly buggered. john

 

[jfar]

It sounds like it doesn't know what the Default OS is,You have to get in to Safe Mode and then tell it in the boot manager which one it is.I am not sure ,but I think by pressing F2 or the Del button, it will get you in to Safe Mode,if I am wrong I am sure someone wont be long telling us.

 

[Bean]

Don't know if this will help, but when i had an XP and a 7 partition on 1 disk I got a disk error after resizing partitions on my laptop; I decided to go into Ubunut live CD and back up all my file onto an external HD and then just reformat the whole drive, wiping it all (after backing up) and making two fresh NTFS partitions using Gparted. I found that when i re-installed both my OS' they both worked, but it is quite a hassel reinstalling everything. but maybe as a last option?

Bean

 

[jfar]

Well that is good that you got to the window that gives you an option ,try different drives to try and start it ,you might find the right drive that the boot is on.

 

[jfar]

If you get in to your system it would be no harm to run this.

SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker
Thanks to BRINK

 

[Orbital Shark]

You could also try booting from the Windows 7 DVD & instead of selecting the repair option there should be an option for advanced repair which includes, Startup Repair, Command Prompt (or very similar), System Restore & some others.

If you choose Command Prompt then you should be able to then type various commands. There should be 1 or 2 to do with the MBR (master boot record), i'll post shortly with the list of the commands that are available.

 

[johnwillyums]

Thanks for all your replies folks,

I seem to have sorted things out. I think GParted got my 2 HDDs reversed.
Both my windows installs were on a different disk to the one I was trying to boot from.
I went into BIOS and moved the HDD order and that got me to completing my Vista new install.
I'm in Vista now. I have an old windows file and I'm trying to get some of my stuff back from that.
Vista is acting strangely though. It keeps refusing to install things that I had on before such as Firefox addons.
Most importantly it won't install the driver for my wonderful Roccat Kone mouse. Luckily I have an old MS one.
I no longer have a boot choice for W7 so I'm formatting that partition.
Hopefully reinstalling W7 will get my boot choice back.
Any thoughts on that?

What a mess. I've been at this all day. Someone said GParted was idiot proof!
Perhaps I am worse than an idiot.
Oh well.

Thanks to you all again, John:huh:

 

[Loki]

Looks from your partition info that you are missing the Windows 7 boot partition at the beginning of the disk, it should be 100 or 200 MB. Can you create a partition at the beginning of the disk of at least 100 MB and run the Windows 7 DVD repair it should copy all needed files into this partition. After you reboot it may need to run the repair option 1 more time to finish, reboot and you should be good to boot into Windows 7.

 

[johnwillyums]

Thanks Loki. I've reformatted the partition but it appears to be at the end of the disk-about 100GB.
My previous W7 partition was in the same place. Do you think it matters?
I was intending to boot from my W7 disk and custom install on that partition.
Hopefully that'll get my boot choice back.
What do you think?
Cheers, John

 

[jfar]

Sounds good,Make sure you format it before you reinstall.

 

[Loki]

The Windows 7 system partition can be at the end of the drive but the boot partition has to be at the beginning of the drive. Or the system partition needs to begin in a bootable section of the hard disk.

Windows 7 creates 2 partitions when you do a clean install. One Boot partition of 200 MB (build 7000) or a 100 MB (later builds) that is at the beginning of the drive, the 2 partition is the system (OS, User) and would be either the rest of the disk or the size selected when installing. Seven needs the small 100 MB (yes megabyte) for booting. If you do an upgrade from Vista, Seven will not create the small partition and keeps everything on the system partition. If you have this small boot partition than anytime you are in the repair mode this will be the "C" drive even if not the "C" in Windows and your OS would most likely be the "D"