A Disk Read Error Occurred

[time]

Tried to install XP on a separate partition on a 1TB drive that was already dual-booting DOS ( W98 ) and Win2k. On reboot, I get:

A Disk Read Error Occurred. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart

Tried it in a different PC, same error. The error comes up straight after POST.

BUT, when I boot off a different drive, I can read everything (apparently) off the 1TB drive. It also passes a read scan and SMART self-dignostics.

So I tried FixBoot and FixMBR, to no effect. Replaced Boot.ini with an earlier version, restored the Win2k versions of Ntdetect and Ntloader. No change.

WTF? Microsoft has some note about the need to install different versions of their sh*t OS in the order they were released. I did, but I assume it could still have f*cked up. I just don't know WHAT.

I'm also wondering about support for the 1TB drive. Both motherboards are not new, the one that did the damage is a GA-M69GM-S2H running BIOS rev F1. I notice that BIOS rev F4 fixed size detection of some 1TB drives.

Help?

 

[ddrueding]

Ugh. Perhaps it was a boot record thing, but FixMBR should have taken care of that. If you feed it to a drive imaging tool (eg Acronis) what does it say? Does it call the drive bootable? If so, I would recommend getting an image of it, formatting, and re-imaging. But others might have better, less time-consuming ideas.

On another note. Setting up a multi-boot system is not only time-consuming and difficult when you firs set it up, but every time you have to work on it. If you do have to multi-boot, and VMs aren't good enough, this method is more reliable:

1. Install OSes one to a drive.
2. Only have the target drive in the system during OS installation.
3. Use the BIOS boot menu (usually F12) to pick your OS.

Using this technique, each OS doesn't mess with the others; drives can be re-imaged, removed, or added without any change needed. It also doesn't matter what order the OSes are installed.

 

[time]

Sorry, self-inflicted wound (sort of). I had changed the cluster size on the first partition and forgot all about it. Apparently, WinXP install can't handle that and quietly corrupted something.

I was able to recover by converting the cluster size to the default of 4kB.

Out of interest, still can't install XP on the 1TB drive on a somewhat antiquated Asus nForce 3 machine. No BIOS update from Asus, so that's it.