When attempting to start my 2005 Dell desktop computer the following message appears: “Disk read error occurred. Use Control/Alt/Delete”. However, pressing Control Alt Delete does not clear the error and instead it reappears. A friend managed to (somehow) get into the computer far enough to produce a different message: “ofoo error code 3314. Use Control/Alt/Delete”. However, upon pressing Control Alt Delete the message repeats again! Can you assist in resolving this problem?

It is useful that your friend managed to somehow get access further into the computer so that we could see that second error message since it sheds some light on the actual cause of the problem. The message is not actually “ofoo error code 3314” but it would be instead a 00F0 error – which is a hexadecimal error code found on Dell computers (according to my research on the internet). However, this is a fairly broad category of error so we need the second number that you provided 3314 to narrow the issue down to a particular root cause. Unfortunately there does not seem to be much useful information in response to the 3314 error code that you provided, so in case you transcribed this error incorrectly I searched around for common variants with 1344 and 1334 being the closest to your original error code. The results from both of these investigations indicate that a hard drive problem appears to be the cause, which would be congruent with the behaviour being experienced on your computer since it appears to be unbootable.

Before going any further we should confirm our initial suspicions that the drive is faulty by running the Dell diagnostic utilities. These utilities come with all Dell computers and should be accessible by pressing a particular key when the computer is booting-up (if you are unsure of the exact key then consult the manual that came with your computer). These diagnostics are located on the motherboard so a failed hard drive should not affect your ability to run the utilities. Once you have found the diagnostics run them to perform a series of automated tests of the computer’s hardware. At the end of the tests a report should be presented indicating the findings.

If the diagnostics detect a faulty drive, or bad sectors on the drive, then I hope that you have a backup of the data on your hard drive since it is looking increasingly likely that the drive has gone bad. If you do not have a backup of the drive, and you do need the data on the drive, then I suggest that you don’t attempt any further fixes yourself but instead start to enlist the assistance of a professional data recovery company such as DriveSavers (www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com) or Kroll Ontrack (www.ontrackdatarecovery.com.au). While you could continue to attempt a recovery yourself (by connecting the drive to another computer, for example) the risk is that every time you use an already bad drive you could be inadvertently causing more damage which will make the eventual data recovery by professionals more difficult and thus more expensive. Therefore, I always recommend (particularly when you are dealing with a failed drive that contains information you need) that you cut your losses and use expert data recovery.

However, if you do have a backup of the data then we can experiment a bit further to check whether the drive is still usable or a write-off. Before doing so, I suggest that you double and triple check that you have a complete backup copy of all the data which you need as by fiddling around with the drive we will likely eliminate the opportunity to recover the data from the drive. Once you are satisfied that you do have a full backup of the data grab your Windows XP CD and insert that into the drive on your computer and commence a reinstallation of Windows (i.e. reboot the computer and then boot from the Windows XP CD). When you are going through the Windows XP setup screens you will be eventually asked where you would like to install Windows XP. Delete all the existing partitions and then select to install Windows in the unpartitioned space. On the next screen yow will be asked how you would like to format the drive. Select NTFS but do NOT select the “Quick” format option. Instead, go for the normal, full format. This will ensure that the drive is “zeroed-out” which is a much more robust way of formatting the drive, particularly when it is known to have errors. Proceed then as per usual with the Windows XP installation.

Once the installation has concluded you can setup Windows XP as you normally would. Just make sure you keep monitoring the computer and if any issues relating to the hard drive arise again it probably indicates you should replace the drive since some kind of fault still exists. Also, make sure that you continue to make regular backups in case the drive does fail again! Of course, if you can’t even reach this point because the drive is so bad the reinstallation of Windows failed then you would be looking to get a new hard drive.

Moving onto the other scenario, whereby the Dell diagnostics do not detect any errors with the drive, then I would still be sceptical about the health of that drive since the error message that appeared is a Dell hardware message, pointing towards a hardware-based fault, rather than a Windows message, pointing towards a Windows fault. That said, if you do have a full backup of your data then you can experiment with reinstalling Windows as mentioned above. However, if you do not have a full backup of your data then you need to proceed a bit more cautiously in case the drive is faulty. My recommendation in this situation would be to enlist professional data recovery. If the drive is not faulty then the cost of recovery will be fairly minimal, and at least they can easily recover your data (which would probably be a challenging task for you to accomplish anyway) but if the drive is faulty then at least your data would be (hopefully) recoverable!