ok i was watching a movie on my computer and suddenly it just stops working. i restart it and it goes through the motions of booting up and says

disk read error
press cnrl alt del to restart

help!

4/3/2006 9:53:31 PM

sounds like bad hard drive. It could be another issue but usually a disk read error implies a bad hard drive. (Also make sure there are no CD's in the CD-ROM drive or floppies in the floppy drive when booting). Remove it and see if it is recognized when connected externally by USB (or firewire) to another computer. If it is recognized then go ahead and get any information you need off of the drive.

If it isn't recognized then your hard drive is pretty much dead.

4/3/2006 11:57:30 PM

FREEZER TRICK!

4/4/2006 12:17:48 AM

i was looking online and somewhere people were getting xp cds and doing system restore on it

would that be of any help?

4/4/2006 12:25:45 PM

^ no.

If it is indeed a hardware failure then you will need a new drive before your computer is usable again.

4/4/2006 12:42:07 PM

make a thread in classifieds and tell someone you need a 5gb hd that works and that you'll give them 5 bucks for it

4/4/2006 6:58:15 PM

OMG FREEZER TRICKED SAVED MY LIFE

too bad i just spent $100 on a new super spiffy 160GB harddrive

4/6/2006 10:25:26 PM

You can try slaving the new one to the old one.

4/6/2006 11:11:33 PM

how do i do that?

i know i need to move the jumper things...

but do i put them on the same ribbon or do i use a separate one?

[Edited on April 6, 2006 at 11:32 PM. Reason : ccc]

4/6/2006 11:32:39 PM

What kind of hard drive did you buy and did it come with a IDE cable that has three connectors on it?

If so your instruction manual should tell you how to set the jumpers to slave the drive to your old one. And yes they need to be on the same cable.

[Edited on April 6, 2006 at 11:41 PM. Reason : :]

4/6/2006 11:38:23 PM

done and done

4/7/2006 12:18:13 AM