Computer will not boot - disk read error - cannot boot from HD or DVD

Computer will not boot - disk read error - cannot boot from HD or DVD This is a >3 year-old system: HP a1640n. There have been no issues with it in the past. I added a video card 2 years ago, and more memory 1 year ago, both without issues. There haven't been any recent hardware changes. I did install Win7 in Oct., but there were no issues with that either.
Asked by: Guest \| Views: 435

Total answers/comments: 2

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Guest [Entry]

"My first thought when you said this is simply that the hard drive has died.

You also said you had a problem with booting from optical drive. Based on the fact that you have upgraded to Windows 7, I take it that you know how to do this properly. I would double check and just make sure that it is set correctly and the disk is bootable.

Apart from that, I have seen power surges or similar take out single chips that make it hard to track down faults. If the machine is over 3 years old, it is possible that it is using a IDE optical and hard drive, so a failure in a controller chip could take out both.

However, I don't want to scare you, you should start by making sure that the BIOS recognises both the optical and hard drive, then try booting a different disk to rule that out.

If you can boot - it means that your boot cd/dvd is bad. If not, then it is possible of either a bad coincidence and the optical drive is bad or your motherboard is.

The above all only deals with the optical drive, whether you fix it or not, I think the hard drive is bad or has a boot problem. You may have luck formatting/repairing/reinstalling on it or it could be a physical problem requiring a new one... or again, lastly, it could be the motherboard.

It is really hard to know, but I hope this has covered everything."

Guest [Entry]

"first of all, i'd blow any dust out of the system (preferably with canned air).

then re-seat all addon cards, memory modules and cable connectors."