Data Error Reading drive C

When my brother boots his Mesh PC it shows the windows 98 logo, then during the load the message
"Data error reading drive C. Abort, Retry, Fail" comes up. none of the options do anything and Windows does not load.
Scan disk says that there was an error reading a cluster and will ignore that bit, but gets stuck on 1%.

What can I try now? Is the hard drive (seagate) broken? Will a format help? Is there any way to keep my data and load Windows?
Thanks in advance.

 

Hi silverwork...

Go to Seagate and download the "SeaTools Desktop" diagnostic tool. Download the file and execute it...make sure you have 2 blank formatted Floppy disks...the executable will then make a bootable diskette.

From Site...

System Requirements for Running SeaTools Disc Diagnostic

You can run SeaTools Disc Diagnostic to test your disc drive if your PC has:

- at least one (1) Seagate Technology disc drive.
- an IBM / Intel compatible PC with a 386 or greater processor.
- SVGA 800 x 600 or greater graphics capability.
- at least 8 megabytes of RAM.
- 1.44 megabyte floppy disk drive for the bootable SeaTools diskette (Two (2) diskettes required with version 2.x).

This link with give you Seagate's SeaTools Usage Instructions

You can use this tool to scan the hard drive for errors. I use similar tools for Western Digital, Fujitsu, and Maxtor Hard drives.

 

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but I guess you already know you have problems. My suggestion would be to slave that drive in another machine and copy whatever you need re: data files and the like. Pronto. Get whatever while you still can.

Then you can try all the things you want re: salvaging that puppy. In the long run, chances are real good that your drive is hosed. Once you start getting bad blocks or sectors, the drive is on its way out. In time, you'll more likely than not, get more and more unreadable areas and that means lost data, programs that don't run and operating systems that fail.

Assuming you didn't make any other recent changes to this machine, your HDD is at least part of the problem. It could be more. Drives fail, but other problems can be catalysts or contributors. If you made recent changes to that machine then we could have a different problem to deal with. Memory can cause almost the same symptoms, so can power. Is your brother having fun yet? Hey - what are brothers for? hehehe .........

 

Thanks for the answers, I will try the diskettes today. I have tried to slave the drive to my PC, but my computer does not read the drive at all.
Nothing has been done to this PC at all recently - it literally would not boot up one day.

 

OK this time I could read the drive when I slaved it to my PC. I could not analize it (failed) but managed to run the diskettes and cleaned some bad clusters. Now I can analise and scandisk etc, but windows still wont load (some of the bad sectors where in C:/Windows and now I have missing files.
I will try to re-install windows, but think the disk is wasted

 

Hi silverwork,

If all else fails do a low-level (zero) format on it. It may have bad cluster in the boot sector. You will find it in Seatools or Seagate Diskwizard.

Don't use that disk for storing anything important though.

Matt

 

OK I cleared the bad sectors, but I still can't boot into Windows - it says I have missing files and that I have to re-install Windows, but the Windows98 SE will not let me re0install it says I need an upgrade disk...*sigh*

 

remake partition, and should install ok

silverwork,

If you have saved all important files, boot from startup floppy and do fdisk, delete partition, then make partition and format. That should eliminate bad sectors and you can install se without the upgrade disk.