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General discussion

PC help required

by mehtabahmed Jun 19, 2007 8:02PM PDT

Hi,

My which is a Dell running WIndows XP - is not starting up.
When I turn on PC, get message 'Cannot read disk error. Press Contoal ALt Delete to restart' = doesn't make a difference.

Can anyone help?

Discussion is locked

2 Posts

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Re: disk read error.

by Kees Bakker Jun 19, 2007 8:25PM PDT

Three possibilities to fix this, depending on the cause

1. Check the BIOS to see if it boots from the hard disk. If not, change it.
2. Run fixmbr and/or fixboot from the recovery console (that's on the Windows XP CD)
3. Replace the hard disk.

Tell which one of these you feel able to do yourself. For #2 you need a Windows XP CD. Did Dell provide one?

Kees

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Maybe A Floppy In The Floppy Drive...

by Grif Thomas Former Forum moderator Jun 20, 2007 12:54AM PDT

...which needs to be removed...Or the items Kees has suggested.. Usually, the hard disk has gone south.

Hope this helps.

Grif

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