Free PC Support

jrobertson29365 · Joined: 22 Dec 2008 Posts: 10

A friend has just given me his old Toshiba satellite 4090CDS laptop but when I try to boot it up I get a grey screen and the message "A Disk read error occured, Press CTRL, ALT, DEL to restart" but when I follow the instructions it looks like the laptop is rebooting itself but it just comes up with the same message again and again.

Any thought on what could be the cause?

Thanks

Jim

SoftStag · Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 1792 Location: UK

The PC is attempting to boot from a disk it cannot read. Make sure there are no floppy disks, CDs, DVDs, etc in any drives, and also make sure there are no USB drives connected to the laptop. If this doesn't help then it is probably that the hard drive has become corrupt, and will require formatting and having Windows installed on it.
_________________
"Microsoft programs are generally bug-free. If you visit the Microsoft hotline, you'll literally have to wait weeks if not months until someone calls in with a bug in one of our programs. 99.99% of calls turn out to be user mistakes. I know not a single less irrelevant reason for an update than bugfixes. The reasons for updates are to present more new features."
-- Bill Gates, on code stability, from Focus Magazine

jrobertson29365 · Joined: 22 Dec 2008 Posts: 10

Thanks Soft Stag,

If it's the last one how would I reformat the laptop?

SoftStag · Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 1792 Location: UK

If you have a Windows CD, then you should be able to boot from the Windows CD and start the Windows setup - during setup when you select where to install, you should have an option to format before installing.
_________________
"Microsoft programs are generally bug-free. If you visit the Microsoft hotline, you'll literally have to wait weeks if not months until someone calls in with a bug in one of our programs. 99.99% of calls turn out to be user mistakes. I know not a single less irrelevant reason for an update than bugfixes. The reasons for updates are to present more new features."
-- Bill Gates, on code stability, from Focus Magazine

jrobertson29365 · Joined: 22 Dec 2008 Posts: 10

Thanks once again,

I'm not sure what OS was on the laptop and my friend can't remember but I think it was Windows XP that was installed.

SoftStag · Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 1792 Location: UK

You can do this from a Windows XP CD, but you will need a valid XP Product Key to install XP.
_________________
"Microsoft programs are generally bug-free. If you visit the Microsoft hotline, you'll literally have to wait weeks if not months until someone calls in with a bug in one of our programs. 99.99% of calls turn out to be user mistakes. I know not a single less irrelevant reason for an update than bugfixes. The reasons for updates are to present more new features."
-- Bill Gates, on code stability, from Focus Magazine

jrobertson29365 · Joined: 22 Dec 2008 Posts: 10

Would the key from my desktop be ok for this?

jrobertson29365 · Joined: 22 Dec 2008 Posts: 10

SoftStag · Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 1792 Location: UK

Normally each copy is only licensed to be installed on 1 PC, although this would depend on the licence you have.
_________________
"Microsoft programs are generally bug-free. If you visit the Microsoft hotline, you'll literally have to wait weeks if not months until someone calls in with a bug in one of our programs. 99.99% of calls turn out to be user mistakes. I know not a single less irrelevant reason for an update than bugfixes. The reasons for updates are to present more new features."
-- Bill Gates, on code stability, from Focus Magazine

jrobertson29365 · Joined: 22 Dec 2008 Posts: 10

I didn't know there were different types of licence but the one I have is for XP Home

SoftStag · Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 1792 Location: UK

I could be wrong, but I don't think they do volume licences for XP Home - so you can only install it on 1 PC at once. If the laptop came with a preloaded copy of Windows, the product key should be stuck to the bottom of it.
_________________
"Microsoft programs are generally bug-free. If you visit the Microsoft hotline, you'll literally have to wait weeks if not months until someone calls in with a bug in one of our programs. 99.99% of calls turn out to be user mistakes. I know not a single less irrelevant reason for an update than bugfixes. The reasons for updates are to present more new features."
-- Bill Gates, on code stability, from Focus Magazine

jrobertson29365 · Joined: 22 Dec 2008 Posts: 10

Ok thanks, I don't see a OS Key sticker on it anywhere.