# Read Element Failure



## Davecz2 (Jun 26, 2003)

Hi 
I've been having some problems with my computer
freezing up lately and doing other strange things. So I did a scan disk.
Well the scan never finishes. It stops in the same spot every time. I was thinking there is an error there it can't get past.
I ran the scan at least 5 times with the same result. A couple of
those times I did it in safe mode to see if that would help. I ran a
hard drive test with PC Doctor but it passed that. 

So I contacted Gateway(My computer Maker) and they had me do a GWSCAN on it. It said I had a "Read Element Failure" But otherwise no errors on the disk. They said "Read element failure' message means that some of the sectors on 
the hard drive was not readable either due to corrupt data or bad bootable system files which were not readable. It does not means the hard drive is bad. 
Then Gateway said to fix this problem I needed to write zero's to my hard disk and reinstall all my software.

I really don't want to do this if I don't have to.
I just did that early this year and it's a big job getting everything back to were it was.
Is there any other possible solutions to this problem?
I have a pentium 3 processor and use Windows ME. 
Dave


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

I would get a diagnostic utility from the manufacturer of the actual drive and test it. This maxtor utility does a good job and works with various drives that aren't even Maxtor: http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm


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## Davecz2 (Jun 26, 2003)

I went on Western Digitals Web Site and got a diagnostic utility
as suggested by Triple 6. It tries to fix the problem too. But no luck.
Still have "Read Element Failure"
Thanks Triple 6 for tryng to help.
There isn't much info out there on the net about this problem.
Anyone have any more ideas.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

I'm just guessing but I think the problem may be the physical drive and not the data on the drive.


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## Davecz2 (Jun 26, 2003)

I'm thinking that too. Still the western digital diagnostic utility says there are no errors on my disk but I still have the read element failure. Like they are two separate things.
The way I understand it the read element thing is a software problem.
Guess I'll find out after writing zeros


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