A disk read error occurred press CTRL+ATL+DEL to restart

TeamBills

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A disk read error occurred. Press CTRL ALT DEL to restart.

I get this error message every time I turn my computer on. I can't do anything on the computer now. I read a lot of stuff. And it seems what I need to do is ghost my data to a new drive. And to use the original one as a slave. I'm basically a computer n00b. I only use this computer for my writing. And I have all my writing saved on this computer. So I want to fix the computer, without having to replace the hard drive.

1 Quick N00b question: How can I use a program like "Norton's Ghost" when I can't get past the error message? If I buy the cd and put it in, will it just go past the error message? Thanks for anyone that helps. Cause I REALLY REALLY REALLY don't want to lose all of my writing. And I didn't back the writing up.
 
It makes no sense not to backup important data, but now it's a bit late. The hard disk might no longer be bootable, but you may still be able to retrieve your files if you connect it as an additional drive to a working PC. If that doesn't work, then consider sending the hard disk to a reputable data recovery service.

Don't rule out Norton Ghost (or similar applications) to make a backup copy of that hard disk as it shouldn't cause additional damage to it. You'll need to bypass defective sectors, but the rest of the data will be backed up. You'll hopefully be able to retrieve your data from the backup. Just don't use applications that modify the contents of the hard disk as it could make it more difficult to recover, even for a data recovery service.
 

TeamBills

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Thank you so much for the comment. And yeah for now on I'm backing up my data.