I've run into a frustrating issue with my Dell laptop. When I boot it up, I only see a 'disk read error, press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart' message. Just a few days ago, everything was working fine. I've booted from a WinPE USB and checked the hard drive with CrystalDisk Info, which shows that everything looks good and all my data is intact. I also completed all the tests using BIOS ePSA with successful results, including the hard drive DST Long Test. I've tried switching from RAID to AHCI, updating and resetting the BIOS, and resetting the MBR and PBR, but nothing seems to work. I can't boot into Windows at all, so I can't access safe mode or any Windows Repair Tools. I'm using a single 256GB Liteon SSD in Legacy Boot Mode. Any suggestions on what I can do next?
2 Answers
It’s odd that your BIOS was set to RAID without a second drive. Typically, RAID requires at least two drives, so it could be causing the disk read error. If you changed it to AHCI, that's good, but keep in mind that messing with SATA configurations without knowing what they do can lead to issues. My recommendation is to simply remove your current SSD and install a new one, which will allow you to reinstall Windows fresh. Then, you can use an external SSD adapter to transfer your data from the old drive to the new one. Just avoid using RAID with a single disk to prevent more complications.
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