"A disk read error occured"

[acstech]

I've run into this issue several times with computers I've sold. I know it's not a hardware problem, as it's occured with completely different hardware. It happens regardless of component manufacturer, chipset, HD manufacturer, etc. It happens on computers with perfectly functional hardware (it passes all tests). It happens on computers with a good sized APC UPS. As far as I can tell, it's a Windows XP problem and Microsoft doesn't know what it is and won't / can't fix it.

What happens is, after the system is in use for a period of time, anywhere from a day to 5 years, it will come up with "A disk read error occured Press CTRL / ALT / DEL to restart" right after post, before loading the OS. I've only seen it on computers with XP.

Sometimes chkdsk (from another computer) will fix it. Sometimes it wont. Sometimes changing the SATA cable will fix it. Sometimes it wont. Sometimes plugging the drive into a different SATA port will fix it. Sometimes it wont. Sometimes changing the drive from SATA 300 to SATA 150 will fix it. Sometimes it wont. It's a crapshoot, and I'm spending a lot of time on it when I could be doing other things. It sucks!

While troubleshooting this problem in the past, I've replaced hardware under warranty. I've taken this hardware, installed Linux, and it works perfectly! WTF? I'm even using a hard drive that had been getting this error every week, that I replaced, on my personal system running Fedora Linux. It's a 250GB Samsung. It's been running for a year and a half perfectly.

So anyway, what the **** is going on? Is XP really that unstable? Has anyone else on here seen it? Does anyone know how to prevent this error, or at least what is causing it?

[Wizard]

Re: "A disk read error occured"

This is hardware that caused this. Dodgy ram, mainboard dropping a bit etc. Investigate deeply. I don't ever see this happen on a good computers.
PSU as well.

List out the sources and what hardware that usually had this happen. Also Maxtor and Seagate had a run of bad drives that corrupts.

Cheers, Wizard

[kc8adu]

Re: "A disk read error occured"

powered off while writing to the disk.
same as pulling a flash drive while writing.
corrupts it.

[acstech]

Re: "A disk read error occured"

I've run into this issue several times with computers I've sold. I know it's not a hardware problem, as it's occured with completely different hardware. It happens regardless of component manufacturer, chipset, HD manufacturer, etc. It happens on computers with perfectly functional hardware (it passes all tests). It happens on computers with a good sized APC UPS.

It has happened on...

Biostar TF-7025-M2
Biostar GF-7025-M2
Biostar TP45HP
Gigabyte P45 P45-UD3L
Various Nforce 4 / 570 boards
Various Asus boards
Various Samsung and WD hard drives
Silverstone, FSP, and AcBel PSU's
Both AMD and Intel CPU's.

It would be a book if I listed every hardware component. I highly doubt it's that.

[stj]

Re: "A disk read error occured"

xp suffers from memory leaks and the hardware drivers are virtually alpha release.
make sure you install the drivers for the chipset and dont try to run 24/7, you cant.

i know people who do run 24/7 in corporate networks and they reboot overnight every couple of days to a week depending on the machine.

[seanc]

Re: "A disk read error occured"

I don't have this happen unless hardware is failing, usually the disk. You checked that disk for bad/pending sectors?

[dood]

Re: "A disk read error occured"

xp suffers from memory leaks and the hardware drivers are virtually alpha release.
make sure you install the drivers for the chipset and dont try to run 24/7, you cant.

i know people who do run 24/7 in corporate networks and they reboot overnight every couple of days to a week depending on the machine.

I used to leave my daily use XP machine on for months at a time... no reboots. Now it's running 7 and is even more stable.

As for the OP problem... usually caused by failing hard drives or RAM.

[acstech]

Re: "A disk read error occured"

Ok I ran an extended SMART self-test, on the one I'm currently working on, using the tools in Linux.

The results show no drive problem. No bad sectors, no pending sectors.

I ran memtest86 on it. No problems there either.

An additional piece of information: Right before the the problem occurs, the Windows event viewer records several event ID 11 errors.

[seanc]

Re: "A disk read error occured"

Controller errors?!

[goodpsusearch]

Re: "A disk read error occured"

could be cables that don't have good contact?

[ethaniel]

Re: "A disk read error occured"

SATA + old XP version = problems. You should be using XP with at least integrated SP3 these days, and make sure you use IDE mode for SATA drives in the BIOS. AHCI is a nightmare under XP. Some drivers are good, but for some motherboards you still need to load separate drivers using a floppy disk (yes, a floppy disk). XP SP2 will be shot down in june. You should consider making the jump to Windows 7 if the hardware allows it, or sticking to Linux. I've been running Ubuntu 10.04 and it works really nice so far.

[AudioCraZ]

Re: "A disk read error occured"

Normally when I see this, is it usually Ram (or memory controller), CPU, or ROM failing. And, every so often, a beyond dirty disk that the customer couldn't realize was the problem....

I never get this on good working systems. If you get a disk read error, there is a problem somewhere.

[acstech]

Re: "A disk read error occured"

Ok, it passes all my tests. Tell me what you use for testing software, as obviously the stuff I use hasn't found the problem.

[acstech]

Re: "A disk read error occured"

Ok I found the problem. It was the memory. Here's the thing though:

1. It passes Memtest just fine. It also passes the Intel Burn Test just fine.
2. It fails Ultra-X Quick Tech Pro's memory diagnostic (this is a paid-for diagnostic program). Leading me to believe Memtest = junk.
3. It only fails when the computer is cold, after having been off and cooled to room temperature. After it's been run for a little while it passes the test.

Weird, 'eh?

[Scenic]

Re: "A disk read error occured"

there's memtest and there's memtest.

memtest86 and the more up-to-date memtest86+ to be exact