Disk I/O error

[Frozzy]

When I started my computer this morning (different one, Win 98SE) it came up, when trying to boot up, with a Disk I/O error when trying to read the HDD.

Is this generally a problem with boot files or a completely fubarred HDD?

[Proteus_MST]

Did it start normal after trying to boot for a second time?

If yes, just make a physical scan of the entire HDD and, if it doesn´t find any corrupt sectors, IMHO just assume that it was just bad luck.

However if you also got an I/O-Error after trying to boot for the second time, IMHO you should better try to save as much files form this HDD as possible
(by connecting the HDD to a working computer system and move all of the important files to another HDD)

[Frozzy]

Thanks for the tip I'll give it a whirl.

I think it might just be a corrupt harddrive as I did a dir\ of the drivew and I got some ridiculous numbers like the volume of the drive being $,¬/ (yes, there was a smiley face) and the dates being like 41/00/42 and such.

[Dis]

yep, time to back up those important porn files. . Your hdd may be on the way out.