I had booting problems with my HITACHI_DK23FA40-40GB. I suspected MBR was corrupt and used MBRwiz tool I down loaded from internet. And the problem became worse. I cannot even access my hard disk. Disk manager can see it but cannot repair the error. I appreciate if I can access my disk or recover data on it.

It may caused by master boot record corrupted, you could use your own windows installation CD to repair it, during boot from the disk there is an repair option. If you do not have installation disk you could use 3rd party tool to rebuild MBR, like AOMEI Partition Assistant to rebuild MBR

It sounds like a damaged MFT but the first thing to do is determine the condition of the drive. You can check if there are problems with the drive using the free trial version of http://www.hdtune.com/

If it checks out ok then you can try to recover your data with Recuva it's free http://www.piriform.com/recuva

Or if you need data recovery help this a good choice for low cost and fast data recovery. All data recovery work is performed remotely over the Internet from a boot cd that you download and the best part is they just ask for donations if you are happy with the results: http://FreeDataRecovery.us

If you completely recovered the laptop and rewrote a hard drive image from the original disk, and it still crashed, then I would strongly suspect a hardware problem...maybe power supply or video circuits. Even though the laptop is not getting hot, there could be a tiny component inside that is thermal faulting.

But the fact that you were able to get a stable boot in Safe Mode - but not in Networked Safe Mode - makes me suspect a corrupted driver, or possibly a rootkit virus. Some nasty viruses can hide in the Master Boot Record (MBR) of your hard drive. Reformatting the drive with the usual tools doesn't touch the MBR...you need special (usually free) software that can rewrite the MBR of your hard drive to "sterilize" it. It's the only way to be sure.

You could spend days or weeks troubleshooting this. If these tricks don't work, I would just bite the bullet and take it to a good shop or send it to HP.

download form bootdisk.com "XP Boot" and burn to cd in an .iso (bootable) format.

boot from the cdrom (you may have to go into BIOS and look for a "boot priority" option to allow you to boot from cd, to acess BIOS, hit "escape" and then either "F1" or "F2" as soon as you turn it on). run fdisk /mbr from the XP Boot cd. with this tool, try to repair the mbr. if that does not work, you need to use this tool to erase the mbr and reinstall windows.

Hi,
This is addressed on IDE ATA drives... (1) - Have you tried a different IDE cable? If not give it a go and do a repair if needed again!.....

(2) - You may have a corrupt MBR (master boot record)!! You will need to reformat and do Fdisk /mbr to delete the master boot record!! Save all data first as this will not allow you to access any of your data as all file location addresses are located in the MBR!!

.....(3) - Your harddrive may have a bad sector get a zerofill tool(low level formatting tool)!! This will rewrite you HD's sectors putting them back to factory spec's!! Maxtors is called Maxblast you can get it from thier site!!

....(4) - or it could be a defective drive, but most read errors are due ot corrupt MBR or a bad sector!!
Hope this has helped you... Please rate the answer... thanks...

Boot Manager

A boot loader, also called a boot manager, is a small program that places the operating system (OS) of a computer into memory. When a computer is powered-up or restarted, the basic input/output system (BIOS) performs some initial tests, and then transfers control to the Master Boot Record (MBR) where the boot loader resides. Most new computers are shipped with boot loaders for some version of Microsoft Windows or the Mac OS. If a computer is to be used with Linux, a special boot loader must be installed.It also allows multiple operating systems to be booted from the same computer.

This file contains the information where the system file is located.

The message you are encountering could be due to corrupt MBR or Corrupt hard drive.

Usually CHKDSK command fix this problem but as you can boot the system you will bot be able to run the command.

Download "Hiren's Boot CD" using the link below

http://hirens.longcomputerservices.com/Hirens.BootCD.10.1.zip

extract the downloaded file with winzip or winrar and burn it in a CD.

now boot the system using that CD (set your BIOS to boot from CD-DVD ROM).

you will have access to repair tools for Hard drive, MBR fix etc etc.i recommend you fgo for CHKDSK command

it will solve your problem.

If not give it a go and do a repair if needed again!

1- You may have a corrupt MBR (master boot record)!! You will need to reformat and do Fdisk /mbr to delete the master boot record!! Save all data first as this will not allow you to access any of your data as all file location addresses are located in the MBR!!

2 - Your harddrive may have a bad sector get a zerofill tool(low level formatting tool)!! This will rewrite you HD's sectors putting them back to factory spec's!! Maxtors is called Maxblast you can get it from thier site!!

3- or it could be a defective drive, but most read errors are due ot corrupt MBR or a bad sector!!

The basic fdisk command to repair the mbr is fdisk /mbr. that will replace the mbr but you may have to re-partion reformat and install from scratch. Good Luck

1 - Have you tried a different IDE cable?
If not give it a go and do a repair if needed again!

2 - You may have a corrupt MBR (master boot record)!! You will need to reformat and do Fdisk /mbr to delete the master boot record!! Save all data first as this will not allow you to access any of your data as all file location addresses are located in the MBR!!

3 - Your harddrive may have a bad sector get a zerofill tool(low level formatting tool)!! This will rewrite you HD's sectors putting them back to factory spec's!! Maxtors is called Maxblast you can get it from thier site!!

4 - or it could be a defective drive, but most read errors are due ot corrupt MBR or a bad sector!!

Avinash thaks for providing the exact error..

Re: A Disk Read Error Occured. Press CTRL ALT DEL to restart

1 - Have you tried a different IDE cable?
If not give it a go and do a repair if needed again!

2 - You may have a corrupt MBR (master boot record)!! You will need to reformat and do Fdisk /mbr to delete the master boot record!! Save all data first as this will not allow you to access any of your data as all file location addresses are located in the MBR!!

3 - Your harddrive may have a bad sector get a zerofill tool(low level formatting tool)!! This will rewrite you HD's sectors putting them back to factory spec's!! Maxtors is called Maxblast you can get it from thier site!!

4 - or it could be a defective drive, but most read errors are due ot corrupt MBR or a bad sector!! Good Luck D.i.l.i.p