Disk read error

Hi,

Have a Compaq presario with XP SP2. It was determined that the hard drive is dieing so I bought a new IDE ATA drive and a kit for backing up the data. I formatted the new HDD and successfully transferred the data. The computer "sees" the new drive as (K) and I am able to access the data on the new drive. I pulled the bad drive and installed the new one and used the jumper that is supplied. I get a disk read error, blah,blah. I went into bios and set the drive as the first boot device. Same error message. Could it be a bad drive out of the box? Thanks in advance for for yor help.

 

First, disconnect the old drive and try booting.

If this doesn't work, go to the new hard drive mfr's website and download the bootable version of their diagnostic software (Seagate SeaTools, etc.), burn it to a CD and run it on the new drive. This should tell you if the new drive is bad.

If you still have issues and cloned the entire drive (including Windows), the data may be corrupt. In this case, you'll have to order a factory restore disc from Compaq and totally reinstall Windows.

Hope this helps.

 

Transferred the data? Exactly what did you do and with what software?

 

Thank you both for the answers. I spoke with our resident IT guy. He says that a Windows operating system cannot be copied. He said to back up all the programs from the original disk to a travel drive. Then I should reformat the new hdd and load windows. Then transfer all of the other programs from the travel drive onto the new drive. does this make sense to you? Thanks.

 

He is correct in that you simply can't copy the folders off your old hard drive and expect to get the new hard drive to boot. However, there are programs which can clone (copy the old disk including the booting information)from your old hard drive onto the new one. Both Western Digital and Seagate use a limited version of Acronis True Image available for download from from their respective websites. Macrium Reflect and Easus TODO Backup are free options with disk cloning capability.