A disk read error occurred. Please help.

Hisked

Good evening, I could use some help!
I’m getting the message “A disk read error occurred” when I try to start my laptop, and it won’t boot at all after that.
The laptop is an ASUS X750 with a Patriot Burst 240GB SSD (where Windows 10 is installed) and a 750GB WD HDD for storage. The error shows up right at startup. I found a photo online that shows exactly what I see - same message, identical screen

SocialImpactCoder

First things first: jump into BIOS and see if your disks show up. Then check the Boot tab - make sure it’s actually trying to boot from the right one

Hisked

SocialImpactCoder I went into the BIOS and checked the settings - boot priority is correctly set to the Patriot Burst 240GB SSD. Both the SSD and the HDD are detected and show up in the BIOS.

SocialImpactCoder

Hisked Next step: make a bootable USB with Windows Portable and try booting from that.
Chances are your partition’s messed up or the SSD’s not accessible.
Boot it up and see what’s actually on the drive.

Nonprofitech

Hisked Sounds like the boot area on the disk might be toast. Try hooking it up to another PC and see what’s going on with the SSD - check for errors, see if any partitions even show up. If nothing’s visible, you’ll need to dig deeper and figure out what exactly’s wrong with it. You can use Victoria to check how readable the drive is. Based on that, you’ll have a better idea of what to do next.

Hisked

SocialImpactCoder Since I have full access to the drive when it’s connected to a PC, is there anything else I can try to get it booting again?

Hisked

Nonprofitech Yeah, it's a possibility. I'll plug it and see what's going on with it.

Hisked

Nonprofitech I connected the SSD to a PC and ran a surface test using Victoria 5.37 - sectors are readable, and no bad blocks showed up. I also ran a Windows error check, which found some file system errors and corrected them.

However, after reinstalling the SSD into the laptop, the system still doesn’t boot. I’m getting the same “A disk read error occurred” message.

SocialImpactCoder

Hisked Run EasyBCD as admin, hit the “BCD Deployment” tab. Pick the target disk, smash “Install BCD”, confirm it. Then hit “Write MBR” to nuke the old MBR. If it doesn’t scream, slap that disk into your laptop and pray it boots

Hisked

SocialImpactCoder Everything was written without errors, the disk worked and Windows started booting! Thank you very much for your help!

oleksandr-lukashyn

Quick summary for anyone dealing with the “A disk read error occurred” issue where Windows fails to boot on a laptop or PC.

📌 Main steps that resolved the issue:

BIOS Check. User entered BIOS and confirmed both drives were detected. Boot priority was set to the Patriot Burst 240GB SSD.
SSD Health Check. Recommended booting from a portable Windows environment to inspect the SSD. Suspected causes included memory access issues or partition corruption. The SSD was then connected to another PC and scanned with Victoria - no bad sectors found. Windows tools, however, reported and corrected file system errors. Still, the drive wouldn’t boot.
Boot Record Repair with EasyBCD. EasyBCD was used to repair the bootloader. Run EasyBCD as administrator. After it, use “Install BCD” to place a new boot record on the selected drive. Finally, use “Write MBR” to rewrite the Master Boot Record. After that, Windows can boot normally.

📝 From myself, I will add. Restoring the boot record via command line.
If EasyBCD isn’t available, the same result can be achieved via the command line. To do this, boot from the Windows installation disk on the problem machine. Either select System Restore or press Shift+F10 at the first setup screen to open a command prompt. Run the following commands one by one:

bootrec /fixmbr  
bootrec /fixboot  
bootrec /scanos  
bootrec /rebuildbcd

This sequence restores the MBR and rebuilds the BCD store, resolving most boot-related issues - effectively the same as using EasyBCD.