Random restarts --> diskboot failure

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Well, if I leave my PC idle for a few minutes (5-10 minutes) my compute rrestarts and when it loads up, i get some error messages.

Two out of three are Disk Read Error.

and second one is Reboot and select proper Boot device
or Insert Boot Media in selected boot Device and press a key.

Anyone help me? :\
 
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How long has this been happening for? Have you installed anything recently that you think may be causing this? type msconfig in the run box, go to the startup tab and see what programs & processes are running when you start up your pc. You might also have a virus &/or some spyware that could be causing these sudden reboots.

It could also be hardware related, ethier your mainboard or hdd could be dying. Your pc could also be overheating, and in that case try downloading a program such as Motherboard Monitor or Everest (free edition) to see what your processor and graphics cards temps are.
 
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Your hard drive is overheating and shutting itself off
 
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Is your pc kept in a unclean/dirty enviroment? If so i'd say your case fans are clogging up with dust witch can have an affect on the airflow inside the case.
Kurt said:
Your hard drive is overheating and shutting itself off
That is also another possibility. Download HDD Temp & see how hot your hard drive is getting. If it's getting hotter the about 66degrees then that's when the panic begins.

I'd say, keep youra pc area clean & if you feel up to it, get a cloth or some toilet paper and cleans the fans & any area of the case that you can see dust on in your pc.
 
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Kurt` said:
Your hard drive is overheating and shutting itself off
Aye. Cool it down or start backing it up.
 
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Kurt` said:
Your hard drive is overheating and shutting itself off
Nope! I ran a test to see what temperature it was running at. 20º, and 40º by night.

I did a system restore and everything seems running smoothly...
 
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I did a system restore and everything seems running smoothly...
Perhaps some kind of virus, Trojan, spy ware, or something else was causing the problem then. Do you have your PC secured for these things? But it is strange, even if it is some kind of virus, Trojan or what so ever. Never really came across one causing Disk Read Error's.
 
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FF|Skyrider said:
But it is strange, even if it is some kind of virus, Trojan or what so ever. Never really came across one causing Disk Read Error's.
Because those are generally symptoms of some kind of hardware failure, overheating, rw head becoming misaligned (and later 'head crashing'), platters spinning out of alignment, etc.

If the drive isn't actually overheating, it may just be physically dying... One way to know for sure is to put another hard drive in the system and run it for a bit and see if that one has the same problems
 
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Kurt` said:
Because those are generally symptoms of some kind of hardware failure, overheating, rw head becoming misaligned (and later 'head crashing'), platters spinning out of alignment, etc.
Yea, I've been thinking the same thing about he might have a hardware problem. But i think it is strange a system recovery fixed the problem. Then again, the problem might occur again.
 
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I also have these weird disk read errors, but they don't seem to affect my pc in any way, does anyone know what they mean ?
 
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The disk read error appears when you have an invalid floppy disc in your floppy driver when the computer checks for an valid boot up disk. It is also possible your hard disk has been damaged, which causes the error you see. Yet i am not sure about the harddisk though.
 
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Ok, so there should be no harm in that, thanks.
 
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Aye, once again I'm wrong.

My windows totally bombed - it wont even load up the OS. So my dads gonna put linux on a disk, and i'm going to have to use linux for a while :\

Anyways, What made this conclusion come to me is when I booted it up this morning it said, "Cannot load operating System", and I've tried aorund 20-50 times restarting, but just wouldnt load up :\

So, can anyone prepare me for whats on Linux and/or tell me how to fix it?
 
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If I recall you told me you have a oem pc right? do you have a restore disk or anything as of such that came with it?.
 
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After you boot off a linux disc (i'm assuming it's some sort of "live cd"), do the following:

type "su" and login to the root account (or possibly "sudo su")

after becoming root, type "fdisk /dev/hda" (assuming your hard disk is primary master, secondary master would be /dev/hdb)

after fdisk pops up, type "p" and hit enter and it will dump your partition table, ie:

root@spark:/home/kurt# fdisk /dev/hda

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 30401.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/hda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 6374 51199123+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 6375 30213 191486767+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 30214 30401 1510110 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 30214 30401 1510078+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
If it doesn't show any partitions, your partition table has probably been damaged (and assuming you didn't do anything to overwrite it, you hard drive is probably close to being toast)

While booted into linux, you can mount your Windows partition and recover any data on it (assuming, again, that the hard disk didn't **** itself completely)

The error is either related to your MBR (master boot record, controls what is loaded when your PC starts up and boots off the hard disk) or the data/filesystem/partition Windows is on being seriously corrupted
 
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Kaination said:
Aye, once again I'm wrong.

My windows totally bombed - it wont even load up the OS. So my dads gonna put linux on a disk, and i'm going to have to use linux for a while :\

Anyways, What made this conclusion come to me is when I booted it up this morning it said, "Cannot load operating System", and I've tried aorund 20-50 times restarting, but just wouldnt load up :\

So, can anyone prepare me for whats on Linux and/or tell me how to fix it?
Have you tried formatting your hard disk and re-installing Windows XP? I always do that when i get problems often with my windows.
 
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Meh, back with this. Nothing worked so far. Though, it's odd. When I start my computer, I get a bunch of messages.

"Error loading operating System"
"disk boot failure"
"damaged or corrupt file" (which i take from my moms XP and transfer to here and :yes:)

But, after stopping and restarting my pc for about 1-30 times, windows XP will load up normally and all is normal.

im on the xp atm. But, another good news is that my windows stopped crashing so often and restarting. But anyone know wtf to do. I cant really seem to re install windows XP as I lost the disc somewhere, and I don't have enough money to buy a new one, and my parents don't want to (since i lost it :p)

Also, linux = teh confusen. I had barely somewhat of a clue of what I was doing, so I'm sticking wtih windows.

So, bottom line - How do I get it to boot straight to windows without any errors whatsoever. I did a virus scan, and nothing got brought up. Got rid of spyware. I relaly have no idea wtf is happening :/
 
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Back your stuff up and do a full system reinstall on a new HDD because Kurt is probably right. Further, if it isn't your HDD, it may be your PSU, which would require replacing.
 
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Well, this has been going on long enough. Sorry if this is considered reviving but its important <.<

Well, I loaded it up and it came up with this huge error message 'OVERCLOCKING FAILED" (i havent over clocked it; its at default)

F1 for Bios
F2 for restart

So i went into bios, and I found out...

Well, this is what it said.

CPU Temperature: [50.5C/122.5F]
MB Temperature: [37C/98.5F]

Now, I might be a bit naive, but I'm kind of thinking thats waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too high.

Can anyone tell me if these numbers shuold be drastically lowered?

Note: I just turned on my PC for the first time in a few hours and got it.
 
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you realize thats half the boiling point of water.

does the computer makign a wierd humming/roaring/mirring sound leading up to the crash/restart?

try getting a can of air duster, and airing out your tower, make sure your fans are working correctly, you can get little fans to cool your card slots and **** inside your tower, and a generic "cooling fan" toa ttach to the tower too.
 

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