Urgent: Disk read error has occurred, press ctrl alt delete to restart

[lwhite2002]

Same error message is received on my Dell D800 w/XP running error message states only Disk Read Error press Alt ,Del, Ctrl , which loops all over continually and nothing ever happens I cant' reach my desktop now Please send help

 

[apache_lives]

test your hardware - hdd, memory, etc
good tools:

Seatools for Dos (HDD)
Memtest (Memory)
UBCD4WIN (General)

most likely a faulty hdd - test to confirm

ofcourse like any responsible person you have backups of any important data and incase of the hdd failure right?

 

[lwhite2002]

Thank you and this was my son's laptop and I am trying to help out,am now running memory tests etc. via a Dell boot disk which will hopefully correct this error ,no there was no backup in place for any hdd failure?