The appearance of the so-called blue screen of death for many users causes horror and shock. And what about situations when, instead of the usual download on a black background, which is very symbolic, an error message appears reading the data from the hard drive, generally recognizing it, which is usually presented as a line A disk read error occurred. How to fix such an error? Now we will figure it out.
Message A disk read error occurred: how to fix. Causes and consequences
To begin with, we will determine the causes that can cause errors of this kind. Suppose the message A disk read error occurred appears. Press ... Not every user knows how to fix such a mistake.
Moreover, many do not even suspect what it is at all. But it would be worth it. Apparently, this is connected with the operating system itself, as they say, insofar as. Most likely, the user himself caused "OS" irreparable damage. And that's why.
The simplest reason is installing the second system on a local computer terminal (even on a virtual machine), installing an outdated version of Windows on top of a newer modification, damage to the boot sector due to improper shutdown, physical damage to the hard drive and connected loops, conflicts between the system and antivirus software and etc. In general, there are enough reasons for a headache. But now we will talk about how to nevertheless interpret the computer message A disk read error occurred. Press Ctrl Alt Del to restart. How to fix this situation? Simple enough. And do not be scared. There is nothing particularly serious or terrible in this (of course, if the Winchester did not “fly off”). There are several solutions that will be presented now.
The role of BIOS in the process of restoring system health
First, let's determine the BIOS. In fact, this thing is an integral software component of the motherboard, on which in most cases all other devices are mounted.
In other words, it is able to recognize all the hardware connected via loops and change the basic parameters supported by such devices during use.
Thus, it is not necessary to say that it is the BIOS that helps to fix this type of error. After all, no one is safe from the fact that the message A disk read error occurred again appears. How to fix the situation with the BIOS settings?
First of all, you need to make sure the boot sequence. To do this, call the BIOS settings before starting Windows. Usually this is done at the very beginning of the boot, after initialization, by pressing the "Del" key, sometimes - "F2", "F12", etc. It all depends on the model of the computer system and the version of the BIOS or the developer.
Now we look at the boot priority in terms of the primary device. The system drive (usually drive “C”) should be set first unless another option is used. There are problems with him too. In this case, we mean the operating mode of the hard drive. Often, the incorrect switching of the IDE / SCSI modes for the SATA controller in the BIOS can “break” the entire system and lead only to the fact that the data will not only not be read, but the hard drive itself will not be detected by the system.
The secondary function of the BIOS is to set boot priorities. In this case, we have only the moment that the operating system itself must start from some specific medium (and this may not always be the computer’s hard drive).
A black screen with the message A disk read error occurred: how to fix via BIOS?
Now let's decide on the BIOS settings. First, go to the download settings and see if there is a system partition in the download. This can be the Boot Device Priority, Boot Sequence, etc. menus. Different developers representing completely different BIOS versions may use other commands. The essence of this does not change.
Checking the physical connection of hard drives
Now let's look at a situation where a line on a black screen appears again and again (A disk read error occurred). What to do?
If we have a stationary computer terminal, it is recommended to check the cables with which the hard drive is connected to the "motherboard". As already clear, we can expect that anyway the problem of the appearance of the string A disk read error occurred will remain. How to fix this situation on a laptop? Everything is much more complicated here. The fact is that all the "iron" components are non-removable, to climb into the "laptop", tear seals, and even if it is under warranty, not everyone wants to. Here you have to apply software. This is at least.
Restore system
Before applying the cardinal methods, you should make sure that the system is generally operational, and that reading data from the hard drive (at least from the system partition) is done without problems.
The system boots normally or does not boot, there is no difference. First, use the boot in safe mode (F8 when Windows starts). Then go to the rollback function from the control point.
If this does not help, we boot from the installation or recovery disk, where we select exactly the point in time to which the system needs to be restored. But this does not always work.
Check boot record
In most cases, it is the message A disk read error occurred that informs about problems with the hard drive. How to fix the situation in terms of restoring the boot record and checking the disk? Use at least the simplest methods provided by the system itself, why not?
Here you should pay attention to some commands executed by the system itself to restore boot data, registry, etc., as well as special commands executed through the "Run" menu.
In our case, it is best to use not this menu, but the command line (it is called from the same Run menu by entering the cmd command). Now let's get down to the teams themselves.
Special teams
Suppose we have a problem in the form of an error with a line on a black screen A disk read error occurred. How to fix? XP (Windows) today, although it supports most commands, but still it is somewhat backward even in terms of algorithms for their execution.
Nevertheless, when you invoke the command line, what’s in the “add-on”, what’s in the “seven”, what’s in the “eight”, what’s in the same “dozen” some commands work universally.
This applies to sequences such as “First Boot Device” and “Second Boot Device”. We install in the BIOS a CD / DVD with the system installation or recovery disk in the drive, the primary priority and boot from it, and then go to the console (in Windows XP - the "R" key).
Here you can use the boot loader recovery partition, but it’s better to go directly to the command line and then enter Bootrec / FixMbr, Bootrec / FixBoot commands one by one, if you need to check for several “operating systems” in the system partition at startup - Bootrec.exe / ScanOs, in the extreme case - to overwrite the entire boot area with checking the system disk for errors and inconsistencies - Bootrec.exe / RebuildBcd. After that, you certainly will not have to doubt the system’s performance.
What is the result?
If you summarize all of the above, you can see that restoring Windows is not so difficult even when errors like A disk read error occurred. How to fix this, we have already figured out.
Separately, it is worth noting that in this section we did not consider utilities for checking the hard drive and fixing system errors such as Victoria (the best today) and the unique HDD Regenerator “screw” recovery program that can “reanimate” hard drives even in the most critical situations with physical damage surface. But, as a rule, such cases are very rare, and special attention is not paid to them. But here in the program plan and in the settings, which in the future will be able to determine the behavior of the system, you should understand it carefully.