On 30/01/2012 19:36, Steve wrote:

Brand new WD 500GB SATA hard drive installed into a PB machine and the
factory image (four user-created DVDs) of Windows 7 Home Premium
restored to it - did it on Saturday for a friend of mine. Having been
bitten a couple of times with brand new drives being faulty, I've now
taken to downloading the manufacturer's diagnostic software and running
that first - WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics came up with zero errors
after an in-depth test that took 1hr 20mins so I went ahead and restored
the factory image to the drive.

Did all the Windows updates and patches, installed AV software and
finally ran Prime95 for three hours as a soak test and all was well.

Friend picked it up today and took it the 20 miles back home. He
installed his printer software and one or two other things and
successfully used the computer for a couple of hours but has just rung
up to say that he can't boot it up now. He gets a message saying:

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

and is now stuck in this loop. Multiple restarts all result in the same
message. Have I done something wrong? Has the brand new drive gone
faulty? How do I fix it? I'm going to his place tomorrow and I'm at a
loss to know what to do now. Thanks in advance.

A disc scan and repair may well fix it. You can boot from the W7 DVD to
get at the recovery tools - the first thing it will try is a chkdsk...

Also check he has not tweaked any setings in the BIOS.

--
Cheers,

John.

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In article ,
says...

On 30/01/2012 19:36, Steve wrote:

Brand new WD 500GB SATA hard drive installed into a PB machine and the
factory image (four user-created DVDs) of Windows 7 Home Premium
restored to it - did it on Saturday for a friend of mine. Having been
bitten a couple of times with brand new drives being faulty, I've now
taken to downloading the manufacturer's diagnostic software and running
that first - WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics came up with zero errors
after an in-depth test that took 1hr 20mins so I went ahead and restored
the factory image to the drive.

Did all the Windows updates and patches, installed AV software and
finally ran Prime95 for three hours as a soak test and all was well.

Friend picked it up today and took it the 20 miles back home. He
installed his printer software and one or two other things and
successfully used the computer for a couple of hours but has just rung
up to say that he can't boot it up now. He gets a message saying:

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

and is now stuck in this loop. Multiple restarts all result in the same
message. Have I done something wrong? Has the brand new drive gone
faulty? How do I fix it? I'm going to his place tomorrow and I'm at a
loss to know what to do now. Thanks in advance.

A disc scan and repair may well fix it. You can boot from the W7 DVD to
get at the recovery tools - the first thing it will try is a chkdsk...

Also check he has not tweaked any setings in the BIOS.

Thank you John

"Steve" wrote in message m...
In article ,
says...

On 30/01/2012 19:36, Steve wrote:

Brand new WD 500GB SATA hard drive installed into a PB machine and the
factory image (four user-created DVDs) of Windows 7 Home Premium
restored to it - did it on Saturday for a friend of mine. Having been
bitten a couple of times with brand new drives being faulty, I've now
taken to downloading the manufacturer's diagnostic software and running
that first - WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics came up with zero errors
after an in-depth test that took 1hr 20mins so I went ahead and restored
the factory image to the drive.

Did all the Windows updates and patches, installed AV software and
finally ran Prime95 for three hours as a soak test and all was well.

Friend picked it up today and took it the 20 miles back home. He
installed his printer software and one or two other things and
successfully used the computer for a couple of hours but has just rung
up to say that he can't boot it up now. He gets a message saying:

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

and is now stuck in this loop. Multiple restarts all result in the same
message. Have I done something wrong? Has the brand new drive gone
faulty? How do I fix it? I'm going to his place tomorrow and I'm at a
loss to know what to do now. Thanks in advance.

A disc scan and repair may well fix it. You can boot from the W7 DVD to
get at the recovery tools - the first thing it will try is a chkdsk...

Also check he has not tweaked any setings in the BIOS.

Thank you John

Check obvious things like loose leads/cards etc. Maybe the tranport loosened something.

Tim

On 30/01/12 20:54, Tim Downie wrote:


Check obvious things like loose leads/cards etc. Maybe the tranport loosened something.

SATA cables commonly shake loose,


--
Bernard Peek