dual boot problem - 'disk read error'

Question

Prologue:   160GB Maxtor SATA disk on Dimension 8400   1) Reformatted the HD to get rid of the dell partitions. 2) Created 2 primary and 2 logical partitions, both primary partitions in the first 30 GB of the disk. 3) Installed Win XP pro SP2 no prob on the first primary (active) partition.   My Problem is , any advice from people who have been through the same thing is especially welcome -   1) When installing my dual boot XP {yes i have pressed F6 and installed the sata driver} upon rebooting (automatic win xp rebooting after copying files) I get the message 'A disk read error occurred', ' Press ctrl+alt+del to restart'   2) I know the disk isn't faulty ( trust me on this one).   3) I'm at a loss.  Am I wrong? is my disk faulty?

Less 8400 · Answer

I really do know the disk isn't faulty (have run several disk diagnostic utilities).

Less 8400 · Answer

i guess this problem raise it's ugly head again later (only bought my PC a couple of weeks ago). In the mean time I'll try DELL's superb hybersupport system ;( {i.e. i'll continue searching on the net})

ejn63 · Answer

Run the Dell diagnostics on the drive.

Dev Mgr · Answer

Are you using a bootmanager to select the OS to boot to, or are you using Windows' boot.ini to select the partition to boot to?

A bootmanager (e.g. pqboot or OS2's fdisk/bootmanager option) will hide the partition that you're not booting from to prevent OS files from going to eachother's folders.

Windows' boot.ini will allow you to boot to a different partition/os from the menu, but one OS can still write files to the partition of the other OS. If a driver inf file wasn't written in the most compatible way, and you're booting/booted to the "d-drive"-OS, it may try to put the driver file in the C-drive and not in the partition where it should be.

Less 8400 · Answer

thanks for the reply dev mgr.  You are almost reading my mind - that is exactly what i want to do - to have two winxp OSes that can't see each other ( to give my sister her own space and OS on the HD without letting her intefere with my OS or see my files).   However, this isn't my immediate problem - my current difficulty is that I can't even install a 2nd winxp OS to dual boot from.  I've done this loads of times on various different computers but keep getting the 'a disk read error occurred' message when installing the second winxp (after copying files - when it reboots)

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