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"Disk Read Error" After Installing XP on my Second Parition

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firewolfsm

Golden Member
Due to a few issues with Vista I decided to install XP on my second partition. I have 125GB dedicated to my Vista partition and 25GB for the new XP install. Both are NTFS as far as I know. I've installed XP before, I know how to do it, everything seemed fine but after restarting, rather than taking me to the dual boot screen, the BIOS gave me an error saying "A disk read error occurred" and now I can't boot into either OS. Microsoft says the issue only applies to new NT installs but obviously that was wrong.

I've tried installing windows over it again, formatting the drive and everything but I still get the error. Thankfully, I know the data on my main drive is still there because the windows installer reports the used space.

MS is telling to do something with my CMOS settings but I'm not sure what.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/222996

"RESOLUTION
Select the correct CMOS setting for the drive before partitioning and formatting the drive and installing Windows NT. For information about setting your computer's CMOS settings, please refer to your computer's documentation or manufacturer."

Any help is appreciated, I have some work on my computer and need access to it soon.

Thanks in advance.
 
I've been messing with it a little more, it seems installing XP on a secondary partition after Vista messed with my boot.ini file (I'm just guessing right now). Pressing F8 to enter the boot options only gives an option for XP even though those files aren't even on my hard drive. Maybe this is a problem everyone would have? I'll try repairing Vista and report.
 
"A disk read error occurred" is an error message generated by your boot sector (Sector 2048 if drive was partitioned with Vista, 63 if partitioned with xp).

The boot code will display this if it is unable to read ntldr. If ntldr is sitting on a bad sector this could cause this. A chkdsk /r from recovery console then a "fast" repair would fix this. It's a bit of a longshot and the /r switch takes forever so use this as a last step. Corrupted NTFS metadata can also cause.. chkdsk /r would be the fix there as well.

During this portion of boot we're using extended interrupt 13 calls to read the disk. If those calls are not available for some reason we would see this error. Updating your bios and setting it to default values would correct this.

Also you are using a large disk and attempting to put XP on the later portions of it. Be sure you are using XP media that has sp2 (or at least sp1) slipstreamed into it. XP rtm will not know how to address the later clusters of such a large disk. (48bit lba needed).

Your vista is likely not booting because you've clobbered the boot loader with an XP copy that is not vista aware. A vista repair (boot the vista dvd) will correct this.

The good news: your data and Vista OS are perfectly fine and intact. You just need to sort out this boot problem.

I hope this helps. My Vista boot kung-fu is still pretty weak compared to my NT 5.x.

 
Originally posted by: firewolfsm
I've been messing with it a little more, it seems installing XP on a secondary partition after Vista messed with my boot.ini file (I'm just guessing right now). Pressing F8 to enter the boot options only gives an option for XP even though those files aren't even on my hard drive. Maybe this is a problem everyone would have? I'll try repairing Vista and report.
Click to expand...

Vista doesn't really use boot.ini any more.

The surefire way to setup a dual boot would be to put XP on first then Vista. Vista (and it's boot process) are XP aware, but not vice versa.

I'm thinking you'll have good luck with that repair.

 
Yup, the repair worked, I think I need an SP2 disk as mine is only SP1a. I found out that to install XP after Vista you need to change a file in the WINDOWS section of XP and the dual boot will work. Thanks for your help.
 
Glad you're working. 🙂

Although an sp2 slipstream wouldn't be a bad idea, the 48bit lba was fixed in sp1 so that probably wasn't the issue.
 
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