[Help] Disk Read Error on Boot

This has been going on for a day now, I've tried a few things but nothing's worked. Upon booting my PC, I get this error:

"A disk read error occured

Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart"

So I restarted and the same screen came up. Then I pressed F2 or whatever to enter the BIOS thing and checked my boot settings and everything was fine. The last thing I did on my PC was download PearPC (but didn't install it) and clean up my registry with jv16 Powertools. I know it's my hard disk because I tried booting with my cd and dvd and floppy drives all open (just in case there was a disk in one of them) I even tried putting my XP CD in to reformat my harddisk but after it says press any key to boot from CD, it says Checking System Configuration or something like that and then the text dissappears and it seems to freeze up, I left it on like that for a few hours and nothing happened...I really hope this can be fixed because I am way too busy (and poor) to go out and get this thing fixed or buy a new HD... :confused:

#223599

Alright, I've installed a different HD as my primary and it will boot to windows install, but I really need the files from my old HD and I want to see if it is broken or not but I dunno how to install the old one as well, do I need other cables? and do I need that red SATA cable (or whatever it is that's the small wire connected to my new main HD) ?

EDIT: Alright, while I was waiting, I decided to try booting using the new HD, but when I was in XP setup, it said it could not continue because it could not detect any hard disks and to press F3 to reboot, I tried booting without my XP disk and it said to select a proper boot device or whatever, so I'm really not sure what's going on and my inside of my computer is really dusty and there's some chinchilla hair (their cage is near the PC) in there (which I tried to clean) do you think that might have gotten into the HD or something?

#223605

I had the same 'no hard drive found' error. I had an old HD from like 2000, and a new Seagate 160 GB which I installed a couple of months ago, but then I decided I wanted to take the Seagate out and leave just the old one (the old one was always the primary, and the new one was always just storage).

But when I did get it out, my old drive just didn't work. It said exactly the same thing: "No Hard Drive Found". I don't know what the problem was (and still is), but I gave up. I'm sorry I can't help you. :confused:

#223608

Ok, got this fixed, but now my drive makes a low volume, high pitched buzz...it's coming from the inside of my drive.

EDIT: Also, I had to reformat and lost everything, I have no backups at all, so I'll definitely be browsing the forums for a while

#223667

abnormal sounds are bad. it could be a sign of a failing drive. run some diagnostic tests.

#223686