eMachines 5230 - 'Disk Read Error'

[tek290]

A couple of days ago my computer shut itself down without warning. When trying to start it back up it went to a black screen, after leaving it for a while it said that a certain sys32 file was missing or corrupt. I had to send off for a recovery CD as i was never given one.

When it arrived i put it in and re-installed XP Home. After this i went to boot it up and on the first black screen of writing it came up Boot from CD: 'Disk Read Error'. I tried to re-install XP several more times and still i got this. I then turned it on and it went to the XP check disk screen (although i dont know how it came up). It took the best part of 15-20 hours to complete all 5 stages and it says some files had been replaced.

So once again i boot it up and it goes fine. I get onto the desktop and start to reinstall some programs. After this it crashed twice and when trying to turn it back on it stays on a black screen and the keyboard freezes aswell when trying to get into safe mode.

My most recent attempt and i havent downloaded any of the Auto Updates for XP because when it tells me to restart i do it but it crashes when rebooting. At the moment im catching up with a few things such as downloading Lost and Prisn Break but at the moment im afraid to do anything with it and i wont be turning it off again for a while.

Any help is much appreciated.

 

[zephead]

emachines uses low quality parts to maximize thier profit. this problem could easily be caused by the motherboard or power supply. i doubt that a damaged hard drive would cause the computer to shut off. rather, the machine would probably hang if that were the case. in either case, you'll have a hard time finding replacement parts. because you have an OEM build, replacement parts are probably available thru emachines only, an they charge alot more than said parts would have cost elsewhere.

 

[tek290]

Well its working again but i dont know for how long, i have managed to turn it on and off several times without it messing up. Im off to uni after the summer anyway and im looking to buy a laptop in the next couple of months so i will just have to make do until then.

My broadband seems a little slow and my torrents are going very slowly but i cant be bothered spending money on getting it repaired.

Thanks for the advice zephead, 2 years use of the computer without it messing up isn't too bad.

 

[zephead]

when you go to get a new machine, i reccomend taking your money to a local pc repair shop or building a custom rig yourself, as it will be the best way to spend your money.