Computer guru needed

[Steve]

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.

[Mike Barnes]

Steve :

Google finds about 83,500 results. It might be worth reading a few if you haven't done so already.

[John Rumm]

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.

[Steve]

Hence the need for help from someone more experienced than I in order to hopefully narrow the field down a bit.

[NT]

How would we know where the problem is? Could be various things, bad hdd, bad mobo, bad battery contacts, bad battery, bios set wrong by mistake, loose lead, screw fell onto conductors, etc. Troubleshoot it then you'll know.

NT

[Steve]

Thank you John

[Tim Downie]

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

Tim

[fred]

In article , Steve writes

uk.comp.homebuilt

This is their specialist area so they will be better able to help.

[Bob Eager]

Cable came loose on the way back and has now moved enough to matter.

[Adrian C]

Has he unwittedly plugged in a USB hard drive, and it's now attempting to boot from that? Those things have become the replacement for 'have ye left a floppy disc in it' curse.

[Steve]

Thanks very much Tim, fred, Bob and Adrian C - fingers crossed it is indeed something so easy to fettle.

[Bernard Peek]

SATA cables commonly shake loose,

[polygonum]

If you install a lovely new drive, switch on and, at more or less the same moment, drop a screwdriver several inches onto the uncovered drive (because you have not yet refitted the cover) it does that.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Steve escribió:

Yes, you made the mistake of fixing a pc for a friend/family member. It's now broken again and it'll be your fault, and you'll be expected to provide free lifetime support for it.

fairly likely (just make sure first he hasn't left a disk in the floppy or optical drive, or a USB stick, or a memory card)

grit teeth, install new hard disk, start again

Plead sudden illness. Change your phone number.

[Tim]

Ain't that the truth. BTDTGTTS. I now try to plead ignorance.

Tim

[geoff]

In message , Steve writes

Is it trying to boot from the correct device?

[Paul D Smith]

Good point - it's not trying to boot from the DVD drive by mistake? But I imagine you're smarter than that and it will be the connections shoaking loose on the trip home.

Paul DS

[Roger Mills]

This seems like the most likely diagnosis to me. When installing from DVD, boot order in BIOS may have been set to look at DVD drive before HD. If the friend has left a non-bootable DVD in the drive . . .

[Paul - xxx]

As it's SATA first thing I'd check is the connection to the HD .. I really dislike the connectors, not robust at all, IME.

Try booting into BIOS and see if the hd is seen correctly before trying a complete re-boot to windows.

[Steve]

You win the prize Adrian as you were the first to mention it. Just before I got to his house today he discovered that if he left a USB flash drive connected nothing happened and the computer booted normally. However, if he left his 250GB Seagate external hard drive connected to the USB port the BIOS looked to boot from that first and it failed.

Went into BIOS and disabled booting from the Seagate external drive and all is once again good with the world - until next time :-)