"A disk read error occurred" after choosing to boot into Windows XP from GRUB

Posted by kellogs on Super User See other posts from Super User or by kellogs
Published on 2010-12-25T13:10:29Z Indexed on 2010/12/25 14:56 UTC
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"A disk read error occurred" appears on screen after choosing to boot into Windows XP from GRUB.

[root@localhost linux]# fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x48424841

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1              63   204214271   102107104+   7  HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2       204214272   255606783    25696256   af  HFS / HFS+
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3       255606784   276488191    10440704    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda4       276490179   312576704    18043263    5  Extended
/dev/sda5   *   276490240   286709759     5109760   83  Linux
/dev/sda6       286712118   310488254    11888068+   b  W95 FAT32
/dev/sda7       310488318   312576704     1044193+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

Here, sda is a 160GB hard disk with quite a few partitions and 3 OSes installed. I am able to boot into Linux and Mac OS fine, but not into Windows anymore. The Windows system is located on /dev/sda1.

I cannot recall how exactly have I used testdisk but it once said:

Disk /dev/sda - 160 GB / 149 GiB - CHS 19458 255 63 
The harddisk (160 GB / 149 GiB) seems too small! (< 169 GB / 157 GiB)  
Check the harddisk size: HD jumper settings, BIOS detection...

So far I have tried to "fixboot" and "chkdsk" from a recovery console on the affected windows partition (/dev/sda1), the plug off power cord for 15 seconds trick, reinstalling GRUB, repairing the MFT and boot sector of the affected partition via testdisk, what next please?

Thank you!

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