Disk read error has occurred" error message w

My brothers harddrive went on his old gateway pc. This pc was an original ME pc. So he went out and bought a 300 GB harddrive and he is install windows XP after the installation formats and copies the files the pc reboots and gets an error

Disk read error has occurred. Press ALT CTRL DEL to restart.

Why is this happening?

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Comments

undomiel

Boot into the recovery console and run a chkdsk /p. If it reports any errors do a reinstall with a full format instead of a quick format. If it reports uncorrectable errors then go get that hard drive replaced as it shouldn't be doing that already. Also make sure all of your cables are secure.

Also make sure the bios is up to date if it was originally an ME pc. I don't think it would be a large disk problem since it was able to do the text part of the install, but it still could be a bios problem in the hand off to the hard drive directly instead of loading the OS off a cd. Reset the BIOS to defaults as well.

superrob5

I will try that was is def strange is this AM I did take the 300 GB and only intalled it onto a 2GB partition and that worked but once its 300 nada.

Mishra

It could also be the disk controller on the motherboard or other symptoms since your old hard drive and the new one are having problems. The hard drive might not have been the problem.

dynamik

How old is the machine? It might need a BIOS update for such a large drive.

superrob5

I am able to see the 300 GB drive in the XP format menu? But after it copies the files it doesn't boot.

The pc is probably 6 yrs old or so

superrob5

I did run chkdsk /p and it did find errors then I ran chkdsk /r

After that chkdsk /p again and no errors but still no luck in getting xp on that harddrive.

My brother did install ME on the pc again but its only recognizing 137 GB which I see is the limit for ME.

But could there still be a problem with the disk

Essendon

I had the same problem when a brand new HD was installed on a brand new computer. I installe d windows on it and the next morning, I had the exact same error you are having. I was able to reinstall windows and things were back to normal. Not sure why that happened and I have checked the cable connections, which seemed alright. In my casem the drive would not even accept the admin password to do a chkdisk...bloody computers, they are good when they work, when they break...

undomiel

I would definitely recommend looking into a BIOS update for the machine. It sounds like that is where your breakdown is at in the large disk support.