A disk read error occurred Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart

[guest]

Last night my computer worked fine. On switching it on this morning, I get the error message:

"A disk read error occurred Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart"



If I press Ctrl+Alt+Del, it just returns to the same screen. Also, when my PC first starts up a get a blue Intel pentium screen, which never appeared before. It will not boot into Windows. I tried setting the boot drive to the DVD drive in the BIOS and booting from my Vista DVD, but after the message "press any key to boot from CD", I just get the same error message.



Any ideas how to help ? I have data I need to salvage from the HD. My old c: is 2 discs connected in RAID. Any boot discs I can use, or other suggestions?

[guest]

This is addressed on IDE ATA drives, not SATA drives.



For those of you having this problem, Here's your answer: Make sure that the black jumper in the back of your main hard drive is set to "MA" (MASTER) as abbreviated according to the schematics shown on top of your hard drive. (On the sticker at the bottom.) Any other drives that you have such as your CD-ROM, DVD-ROM must be placed as "SL" (SLAVE) as abbreviated on the back of them. (These abbriviated letterings are stamped in the metal or plastic part in the back, it can be hard to see, use a flashlight to get a good look at it. Those of you have different brand computers, need to get into the BIOS. First, when you first turn on the computer, the post boot screen will come on, look for where it will tell you what key to press to get into the BIOS. All systems are different, some are done by pressing the F2 key, or the F11 key, others are the DEL key. On Compaqs and HP, uses the F11 key, Dells and other systems uses the F2 key. Barebone systems uses the DEL key. Once you are in the BIOS, you need to find the section on the Boot Order. Make sure the the HDD is placed as the first boot priority before any others in the listing, which means your main hard drive must be placed as a first boot device before any others that is listed.The boot order should be placed in the following order:



1. HDD (Hard Disk Drive)

2. CD-ROM

3. FDD or NET or the like. (The 3rd boot order can also be disabled by selecting it.)





Once you have the boot priority set, hit the ESC key and save the configuration. It should now boot to your main hard drive with the Windows loading on. Also, make sure there are no CDs or DVDs in your CD-ROM drive or the DVD-ROM drive before you start your computer! Good luck.



Update: See page 3 of my newer posting for further explanation of this.