Hi all,

Have an old xp pro computer from a friend which won't boot and gives A
disk read error occured.
Press ctrl alt del to restart.

I have Hiren's boot cd 15.2 when i boot whith this cd and i select boot
from harddisk windows will boot.

What could be the problem? is there a problem with the boot loader or
what else, and most importantly how to fix.

btw i did run chkdsk C: /r and bootcfg /rebuild

Thanks in advance
Marino

<mario@nospam.invalid> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Have an old xp pro computer from a friend which won't boot and gives A
> disk read error occured.
> Press ctrl alt del to restart.
>
> I have Hiren's boot cd 15.2 when i boot whith this cd and i select boot
> from harddisk windows will boot.
>
> What could be the problem? is there a problem with the boot loader or
> what else, and most importantly how to fix.
>
> btw i did run chkdsk C: /r and bootcfg /rebuild
>
> Thanks in advance
> Marino

The problem with chkdsk is that you have to specify a volume (partition)
which will never span all sectors of a disk. The MBR and partition
table are outside of any partition.

The Hirens CD doesn't have any other disk diagnosis programs (and which
are not partition bound)? Don't know from where you obtained Hirens.

https://www.hirensbootcd.org/
"no official updates after November 2012"

As I recall, the original Hirens used some Linux distro while the
fan-supported new version using Windows PE. With a change in OS, the
tool set had to change. At the above web site, I could not find a list
of tools in the Hirens boot image.

Did you yet try fixmbr? Or fixboot? Before doing any modifications to
the disk(s), use a bootable disc or USB drive to save full image backups
of the partitions.

https://www.lifewire.com/fixmbr-command-2625887
https://www.lifewire.com/fixboot-command-2625886

Was this a multiboot setup, like it had Windows XP in one partition and
a Linux distro in another? If Linux is involved, it uses grub for the
boot loader. To rebuild a corrupted grub boot loader, see:

https://www.google.com/search?q=grub%20restore
(add the Linux distro for instructions focused on that OS)

On 12/29/2021 9:27 AM, mario@nospam.invalid wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Have an old xp pro computer from a friend which won't boot and gives A
> disk read error occured.
> Press ctrl alt del to restart.
>
> I have Hiren's boot cd 15.2 when i boot whith this cd and i select boot
> from harddisk windows will boot.
>
> What could be the problem? is there a problem with the boot loader or
> what else, and most importantly how to fix.
>
> btw i did run chkdsk C: /r and bootcfg /rebuild
>
> Thanks in advance
> Marino
>

MBR
Invalid partition table
Error loading operating system
Missing operating system
PBR
NTLDR is missing
Disk error
Press any key to restart

I don't know why this is part way out on my WinXP partition,
but still it gives material for a Google. It can't be inside the
Fixboot and Fixmbr utilities, because those are only on the WinXP CD.

F3CCD030 A Disk read error occurred
NTLDR is missing
NTLDR is compressed
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

https://neosmart.net/wiki/ntldr-is-compressed/

"That MBR code in turn loads the bootsector from the active partition.
On Windows XP, this bootsector [PBR] code is tasked with loading NTLDR
(the Windows XP bootloader) and its dependencies"

Perhaps the PBR is different on NTFS versus FAT32 partitions.
But I run into this all the time here on disk drives, finding
"phantom" file system headers likely left over from improper
disk hygiene (not cleaning disk properly before reinstall).

In any case, it suggests a problem with the disk, some portion is bad,
the portion that is bad is critical to file system operation and
cannot be placed in $BADCLUS.

*******

At this point, I would be using ddrescue to image the disk at sector
level, to a second disk. Based on the contents of the log file, you
can identify what resources are damaged. When I did this on my Dell
disk (crappy refurb drive in refurb computer), I could spot four
files damaged. I used nfi.exe to generate a map of all files, their
cluster locations, then used the addresses of the bad bits, to figure out
the damaged files, then used HxD to verify that not only was the disk
not readable at the sector in question, but the next sector had stale
data (likely a high fly error on write).

This is a Linux utility. I don't know if there is a Cygwin version.
Cygwin can still reach down to physical disk level, so that's not
necessarily a problem, but it's still tricky in a Cygwin port to do that.

https://linux.die.net/man/1/ddrescue

From my notes.

sudo apt install gddrescue # [ perhaps this installs ddrescue in /sbin or /usr/bin ??? ]

# If the WinXP disk /dev/sdb was 500GB, the sdb_rescue.img would be 500GB too!
# The following examples show some of the rescue types. Consult manual page for
# exact syntax details.

sudo ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdb /root/sdb_rescue.img /root/rescue.log # Disk to file
sudo ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /root/rescue.log # Disk to disk
sudo ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdb /dev/null /root/rescue.log # Generate log only

# Examine the LOG file for details. A large log file means
# there are many CRC errors.

gedit /root/rescue.log

# Now, the second pass reads the log, and concentrates only on the
# not-yet-captured sectors.

sudo ddrescue -d -f -r3 /dev/sdb /root/sdb_rescue.img /root/rescue.log # disk to file, etc.

Anyway, that's how you step through a disk and identify the bad parts. The boot process
is probably early in the parsing of the C: partition, had trouble reading the FAT
or the $MFT to locate NTLDR. Something like that :-)

You're not dead yet. The general health of the disk may indicate whether
to abandon hope or to keep working on it. When sectors are bad, there might not
be a user file there, so nothing of value is damaged. Other times, a very
valuable file has a hole punched in it.

Paul