A disc read error occured

[Yurtles]

2 months ago I bought a new system (specs link).
About a month ago I'd get "a disc read error occured. press ctrl alt delete to restart" (right after the bios check and before windows loads) maybe once or twice a week and one or two reboots would make it go away.
Now it'll happen every other time I turn the computer on and it'll take sometimes 10 restarts before it'll actually boot.
Sometimes I get that error message, sometimes it'll hang on the "Starting Windows" screen. Once it's actually started up though, everything runs perfectly - I can even restart the computer as many times as I please with no problems. It only seems to crop up again the next day when I turn it on for the first time.

There's clearly a problem there somewhere, but the way it's presenting itself has me confused as hell; All drivers and windows are up to date, no malware or viruses that I can find, no overclocking and windows repair features find nothing wrong.

I thought maybe it could be the SSD playing up? But I've only had one for 2 months now so I'm not very familiar with them and I don't really know.

[Treloar]

Do you have S.M.A.R.T enabled on the HDD in the BIOS

What does S.M.A.R.T say about the condition of your HDD

Have you tried all the usual stuff to ward off errors such as:

- Cleaning the RAM contacts and re-seating (with a soft white pencil eraser)
- Cleaning the Graphix Card contacts and re-seating
- Changed the HDD data cable
- Stock settings if you've overclocked your system

[Yurtles]

No S.M.A.R.T wasn't enabled, but I've turned it on now. It's funny something like that would be defaulted to off in the bios.

How do I find out what it says about things? From what I can work out I'll need to download a program to do it?

Edit: Downloaded a trial version of Active Smart and it says everything looks peachy.

[Yurtles]

Ran out of things to try software-wise; including formatting and reinstalling windows and resetting the bios, so I tried just pulling everything out of my case and putting it together again.
It booted up first go.. but it'll probably be a couple days before I'll know if it's fixed or not. Stupid randomly occuring errors, they never make things easy.

[cyclobs]

could just be your BIOS trying to book of the wrong disk :/

i had an issue with my PC where it wouldn't boot win7 unless i had a CD in the drive

[ChainsawMcP]

I couldn't see what sort of HDDs in your spec...

Check the BIOS for something like startup delay - it may be (although it's unlikely) that your system is ready to boot before your HDD is ready to go...

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/bios/s ... lay-c.html

It won't hurt to change that setting, and may help...

EDIT: NM - reread original post - saw that it's an SSD so this isn't relevant - but I'll leave it here anyway...

[André Axe'm]

I've had similar happen when a motherboard was dying.
But since it works fine when it does get started, perhaps it needs to warm up first?

[dinofreak]

Seems the Crucial SSDs have a cold boot problem that is known about.
http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Problem-with-boot-on-SSD-crucial-M4-256Go-on-ASUS-N73SV/m-p/57428#M17736

That post is from a few months ago so there could be a firmware update available by now.

My OCZ SSD has a similar random cold boot issue but it is so infrequent that I haven't worried about it.

[cyclobs]

hmm, never had an issue with my SSD. but then the last time i had a cold boot was when i actually installed it

[CrazyMonkey]

my ssd just randomly freezes, then says it can't find the os so i have to reboot...yay...

[Yurtles]

The problem hasn't come back as yet. Going to call it fixed and do my best to stop wondering about what exactly the issue was, lol.

[Yurtles]

It's come back again. Now I get an extreme slowdown in windows for 10 seconds or so before a BSOD and then it reboots to the previous problem (or it's just the same as earlier and never gets to that stage).

Once again the whole thing is random and I can go days without seeing it before it pops up again and it sometimes makes the computer unusable for up to half an hour before it vanishes again.

Is this something I can claim on warranty? I'm not really sure seeing as any test you care to name finds nothing and I can't reproduce the error with any regularity.

[Bluefire]

Have you tried a decent sector by sector scanner ?
Most hdd companies have one out there.. ie: seatools. except crucial.. cant seem to find theirs.
http://www.crucial.com/support/detect_repair_disk_errors.aspx
this is their suggestion, which is pretty useless if you cant get it to boot.

[steve_rogers42]

first step, have you updated the firmware on the drive?


If your not sure how, Head on over HERE, and have a bit of a read up. This i imagine should fix any errors on the drive should it be a firmware issue.

If its an actual fault with the drive, replacing it or RMAing it might be an option, in which case you should have your receipts etc and look at getting in touch with crucial or the vendor. Just remember to keep track of your serials and purchase dates.

Also, might be worth running Western digital's drive tools on the WD you have in there and see if its the problem child.

[Yurtles]

Firmware's up to date, all drivers are.

Chkdsk comes up with an "unknown error" when I run it on the drive, doesn't even get started, tells me to roll back whatever updates I've put on recently and try again, but apart from general important windows updates I haven't done anything to merit that. Just reads like a generic thing it says at any rate.

That's sort of an unsusual one because when the problem initially came back windows ran chkdsk after every crash and it never found anything. At a loss as to why it's now not even running.

I might hit up PC Case Gear and see what they say about giving me a new one even though the problem remains somewhat undiagnosed.