So about a week ago I wanted to transfer some movies from my video camera to my computer. I needed to install an updated driver so I got it from the company (Pinacle) website. I had to restart my computer right after I installed it and when I did, I got that annoying "A driver read error occurred. Press ctrl+alt+del to restart." I looked it up on google using another computer and found 5 billion reasons and ways to possibly solve this problem. Most using the windows setup discs which I do have. The only way I can get these to start running on my computer is to go into setup and turn the HDD off. When I do, windows setup starts loading the files and takes me to the setup menu. This is where I find yet another problem. I can't do anything with my HDD turned off. I tried putting it in another computer to get the files off at least but it didn't show up in My Computer when I turned it on using another HDD at the same time.
So if I have the HDD on, windows setup won't start. It says it's reading the files or something then the screen goes blank and won't do anything.
With the HDD on, it won't start setup. With it off, I can't fix the problem.
Any ideas? I NEED the files on my hard drive. I contacted the company and they basically told me it's not their problem even though it happened right after I installed their driver on my computer.

Help please. And I'm only a 18 year old girl. I don't have a lot of knowledge in computers. I know how to change the HDD, add memory, etc. all the basic setup options. Anything like codes is beyond my knowledge so try to keep it simple if you can?

how would you go about doing that?

yes but I don't know how I would be able to even get there. I can't even get to the login. The only way I can start up the computer is to put in another HDD along with mine. Then it shows a black screen, white text and I have the option of which HDD I want to boot. So when I boot the one that works, it doesn't show the other HDD in My Computer at all.
But I can't get to system restore for my HDD. Unless there is another way

Ok...

It seems that I got the same problem with my older PC last time... It can be three problems.

1. As you told me that you put it on another computer check if that both HDD connected on the another computer is not on Primary as if both is on primary you won't be able to read the recently connected one. To avoid having the problem and if you don't know where is Master and slave just remove the jumper on the side of the HDD and the PC will put it automatically on slave.


2. It can be that the HDD have been damage because mine was the same after installing a driver and program on it, it asked me an error and I can't do anything after even putting it on another computer it remain the same I can see anything. Then the HDD can be repair by some manipulation of a technician

3. You don't need to turn off HDD when going on Windows Setup just unplug it and let it go until you arrive at the page Install Windows Xp etc... Then plug it in and choose Install or Repair and it may be good. If not then you HDD is broken...

Hope that this will be ok...
If not just mail me at amagnien90@hotmail.com
I will try to do the necessary for you...

amagnien, do not put u're e-mail address on the net. u will have a ton of spam.

I don't mind about spam when I found something is unnormal I delete it immediately without opening

Windows xp home edition and the pinacle driver for their Dazzle UBS video connector.
amagnien, thanks for your help. I'll try those options and get back to you.

k so I unplugged it, ran setup after I plugged it back in. It worked fine until I restarted it. Now when I restart it with the HDD plugged in it says:
Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.
Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.

If I unplug it and try to turn on the computer, it says:
Drive 0 not found: Serial ATA, SATA-0
Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the setup utility

pressing F1 just gives the "Strike the F1 ket to continue, F2 to run the setup utility"
AH help!