Occassional Disk Read Error at Boot

I've been having this same issue for about 6 months honestly, and I fear that it is slowly damaging my computer or Windows installation's integrity.

Here's how it goes:
I very, very rarely am able to shut down my computer. When I shut down my computer for more than 6 hours (it seems any less than 6 hours, this issue does not occur), I get the following error on boot:
A disk read error has occured.
Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart your computer.

It doesn't do this after a reboot. It only does this after a long period of being shut down.

From there on, I just have to keep hard booting my computer, and eventually it will kick into gear and start successfully. Sometimes, it takes longer than normal to start successfully, maybe 6 hard boots, sometimes just 2. Sometimes it will boot past the Windows screen and then just remain idle forever. Then when I hard boot, I am told that Windows has failed to start and there may be an installation error. I can continue to hard boot again and it will start successfully.

I've tried literally everything: defragged, defragged the page file, checking the disk for errors, CCleaner, checking memory diagnostics, running Windows startup repair, blowing out my case, etc. Any ideas?
I'm on Vista x86 Home Basic.

 

Could be alot of things. One thing you might try is fixing the master boot record (MBR). Go into windows help and look up "fixmbr", you'll see instructions on how to run it.

 

It is most likely your hard drive is beginning to go bad. Determine the brand of HD and download the manufacturer's diagnostic utility. (I'm not on my regular PC or I'd give you a link) If you give the brand of HD, I can point you in the right direction for the diagnostic.

Right-click the C: drive in Computer and under the Hardware tab it should list your HD model. Should be easy to figure out the brand.

 

http://screensnapr.com/e/RSiU5W.png

Which should I be choosing at these links?
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?level1=6&lang=en
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?level1=5&lang=en

 

Is there any way to fixmbr or fixboot while Windows is active or without the recovery disk?

 

Any of the drives that shows Data Lifeguard for Windows as one of the available downloads will do. It doesn't matter which drive model you have as this is a generic utility for all WD drives.

 

This is your download page http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=606&lang=en

I would try the Windows version for the Short/Quick test just to see if it is reported as good or bad condition.
If you are going to use the Extended test (which is the only one that will attempt to fix errors or tell you if the drive is beyond repair) then I would download the DOS CD version. You would use imgburn or similar burning software to write the ISO to a blank CD as an image file. Then boot from that CD and let it run the extended test on the HD. It will attempt to fix any errors.

***
I don't think fixmbr is relevant to your problem. It would be very odd for the MBR to cause intermittent start up problems. The MBR is either valid or it isn't. It really is most likely a failing HD and you should begin safequarding your data.

 

I'm tending to agree with Sach2. You should start taking preventive measures now.

 

Scanned with both the quick and extended test, passed both.
I am now running a chkdsk and I've noticed that these both times I ran them, a lot of "index files" are being deleted, and also a lot of "orphaned files" are being recovered. I haven't seen that before and I've ran chkdsk quite often.

What exactly is that saying?
Where can I find a chkdsk results dump?

 

Were it me, I would run a memory test next as the hard drive passed the manufacturers tests. http://www.majorgeeks.com/Memtest86_d4226.html.b