I'm getting a "disc read error has occured" message but I know my hard drive works. What do I do?

Question

I recently decided to fix my Dell Dimension 4550 (p4 2.0GHz, !GB SDRAM 266MHz) which crashed about a year ago. First I put in a new hard drive (Maxtor 180) then I reinstalled XP. Once I saw the computer still worked I decided to upgrade it. I swapped out the 250W PSU with an Extreme Power 430W. Then I replaced the (broken) CD drive with a Mad Dog DVD burner. Then I put in a new soundcard (COMP USA cheapie). Everything was up and running and working fine. The next day I decided to teach myself how to set up a network and spent a few hours trying to get it to work. During those hours I probably restarted the computer ten times without any problems. Then I restarted it and got the "disc read error has occurred Press CTRL ALT DEL to restart" message. I initially thought my hard drive crashed again but I swapped it into an external case and attached it to my primary computer--and it worked fine. Now I simply have no idea what to do? Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I'll admit I'm a bit biased against Maxtor (having had 3 disk fail within less than 2 years, one in less than 15 days) but the disk may be having errors. Maxtor does include a utility program that you can run by booting from CD. I'd give that a shot and see if the disk is failing. The SMART feature might be detecting the early signs of a problem on the disk. Just in case you were curious, I'm running on a Seagate (ATA) and a Samsung (SATA via a SATA riser card...my motherboard is old enough that it didn't support it natively). I wouldn't say they are reliable yet but they have been operational on my home PC now for about 1.5 years without problem.