A disk error has occurred. Press CNTL-ALT-DEL

I have an HP Compaq NC6000 laptop, 1.7 GHz, 1 GB RAM (2x512 MB), 160 GB HDD, Windows XP SP3 with latest Microsoft patches applied. Using Comodo Internet Security Suite (updated with current virus database) for firewall and antivirus.

System was running fine until I bumped the power button and it shutdown normally. When I attempted to restart the system, received "A disk error has occurred. Press CNTL-ALT-DEL...".

Access to BIOS is OK... settings on this system are limited, but boot sequence is CD/DVD, then HDD. At the time, I did not have a disk in the CD/DVD drive.

I have booted it several times from the CD to run UBCD4WIN. Using UBCD4WIN, the hard drive "looks" OK. All files seem to be OK.

After searching via GOOGLE, I found a number of suggestions to run CHKDSK, which I did and it found a few errors and corrected them, but still cannot boot from HD.

Also found suggestions to use the Windows Recovery Console and rebuild the boot sector, which I did... no change in symptoms. Unfortunately, I accidentally left another external HD connected and, after rebuilding the boot sector on the primary HD, I find that all of the folders below the root directory on my external HD are now empty.

Again, suggestions from other forums indicated a repair installation of Windows XP might correct the issue, so I tried that with no improvement. The data appears to still be intact, but I cannot boot from it.

I few months ago, I upgraded the hard drive and put the old one in an external USB case, so I swapped them back. This HD boots just fine and I'm able to access the disk with errors in the USB case, but in this configuration I cannot use some critical software because it is not installed on the HD that works, so I need to get back to the disk that has that installed.

Do you have any other suggestions on how I can identify the real problem and fix it?

Thanks

 

Maybe run a manufacturer's diagnostic on the HD to see if the drive itself is causing the problem or the software. Device Manager should tell you the brand of HD under Disk Drives. Then download the DOS (bootable iso) version of the utility from the manufacturer and burn to CD. The short test should give you the SMART status of the drive and the extended or long test would attempt to fix errors.

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

Using the manufacturer's software, I cannot find a hardware problem, so I believe it is software. I don't know how to repair Windows so that I can boot this disk.

Some other circumstances arose, which forced my hand. I decided to replace the HD with a new one and rebuild the system. I still have the "broken" HD in the external case, which I only use to retrieve data I need from that drive.