Hi, guys,

Someone brought me their computer and told me that they get a drive error.

Sure enough, after the POST screen (right about when Windoze should be loading), I get:

"A Disk Read Error Occured
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart"

Grrr.

I of course played with the BIOS settings to no avail, and unfortunately I can't even seem to boot from CD, if you can believe that..

What usually causes this kind of problem, and how is it fixed? My guess is that it has something to do with Windoze.

BIOS shows the drive as a CHS drive, whatever the h e double hockey sticks that is... =)

Thanks,

ShAdOWmoNkX

If they've a floppy drive, I would suggest downloading the Harddrive diagnostics and give them a shot...

Which diagnostics, how, blah blah?

Yeah, notice I have a working floppy, but not CD-ROM, which is weird... is this typical? Cuz on my computer, I can boot from my CD-ROM EVEN when I have nothing on the hard drive. Maybe older drives need drivers even when the BIOS supports it or something?

Or if not, might it be a virus, bad CMOS, something on the drive preventing access to CD-ROM, etc.?

AAR, which drive diagnostics, and how? New to this, y'know... ;)

Thanks again, Whyzman!

You will have to open the case and who is the manufacturer of the hard drive. Go to their website and download the appropriate software and run it.

You need to know the manufacturer of the Harddrive (e.g., Maxtor, Western Digital, etc.,). Usually, you can pick it up from the POST screens, or pop the top and have a gander...

All manufacturers of Harddrives have a diagnostic tool that can be downloaded from their respective sites...it'll let you know if there are problems! ;)