Resolved A disk read error occurred

A Pentium 4 PC had Window Update run, then at reboot after RAM test, it displayed "A disk read error occurred ". I put the Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit DVD and ran the sytem repair a few times and appeared successful, but the problem remained. Then from the Windows 7 DVD I ran System Restore, and restored Windows 7 backward to 13/7 (before 2 updates from AVG anti-virus and 1 update from Windows Update). It was successful too, but the same message still displayed. And I had to follow Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot.

Was it the boot section problem? and how can it be fixed?

 

Thanks Arie.

It seemed to be the Windows Update problem.

I tried a few Restore Point and eventually got one that could restore to a stage that the hard disk can boot up Windows 7, and then a recommended repair option appeared which fixed everything. Now the question is I could no trace back which Windows Update patch (between 13/-16/7/2010) had created such crisis. So, for the mean time, I just stopped Windows Update on that machine.

 

Hi Arie,

Before posting this thread for help, I did some basic diagnostics and found that the backup drive can boot up many times so I eliminated the motherboard hard disk controller problem. I then put the problem disk as a 2nd disk and ran chkdsk on it and no problem found. I then used the Windows 7 DVD to boot up the PC and did a Windows Repair, there was no Read nor I/O error.

After reading your reply, I tried rebooting the PC a few times. About 10 restarts, the Windows started with automatic repair. It looked like a hard disk error as you suspected. (The hard disk is only 4 months old, too bad, or good enough to claim warranty).

Then I found a "Startup Repair diagnosis and repair log" and it showed that a Root cause found: "Boot critical file c:\windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe is corrupt. And Windows failed to repair the file (Error code = 0xa), and System files integrity check and repair also failed, System Restore failed (error code = 0x1f)

Did all these things tell something to you?

 

Well that could either be severely corrupted data - or data that is inaccessible due to the hard drive being faulty in that area.

 

It looked like a mother board problem.

I entered the BIOS Setup manu and checked the IDE hard disk auto detect, both of the attached hard disks would hang up the machine when checked.

Though the BIOS System Health Status reported voltages OK for 5V and 12V, but I found that the problem exists when the AC Power dropped from 243 VAC to 238VAC at night time.

 

That could be a power supply problem (for the latter bit).

 

Likely yes. It's a power supply replaced 2 months ago.

 

What PSU is it?

 

BTX-400. More details are not available unless the PSU is detached.