help!!

[jit]

yea i need some help. so on thursday may the 24 07 i went to sleep. then when i woke up the next day around 11... i turn on my PC which i left on the previous night. i turn it on until i get the horrific message "A disk read error occurred Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart" yes, i had the same problem w/ another hdd. this is a new hdd promptly 1-2months old. if anyone can help me out it would be a lotta thx. i don't feel like playin trem on my laptop. and any help w/o reformatting the hdd cus i have like 30gb of stuff on that pc. and i don't have the window xp pro reboot cd..

[Megagun]

SATA? If so, check if the datacable is loose or not. Loose SATA datacables can cause nasty errors..

What'd you need to do anyways is:

1) obtain a Windows XP Professional installation CD with recovery console (usually this means NOT an OEM version)
2) boot it and enter recovery console
3) enter CHKDSK /P
4) CHKDSK /R
5) FIXBOOT
6) FIXMBR

[David]

This is why I always install the recovery console on any windoze computers I am forced to maintain.
Also, worst case, you can try getting the data back with a live CD and an external disk.
And you should have backups

[PFB]

a) dont store your valuable data on your disk
b) have 2 disks and store you data in both
c) backup your data regularly
d) dont use computers

which one is the best?

if there is no cable related problem
you really need to do /chkdsk
that happens a lot on tired harddisks

[jit]

yea.. this hdd is 1-2months old seeing that this problem occurred a few months ago. i sent my pc to my friend who installed this hdd right now. i recently talked to him. we'r meetin' @ a party and ill hand my cpu to him. he is gonna look @ it but he is suggesting the wires and motherboard are old seeing this pc is like 9 yrs old with a brand new hdd.