When I started getting this message lately and could not resolve it. All things pointed to a new motherboard and due to the age of the laptop that would have meant a new laptop. I had tried all the solutions of which NEVER worked before and even my old reliable solution; restore from a backed up drive image did not work this time. But I would not give up for I knew that this was a Microsoft error and they were not giving a clue on how to resolve it. I have found the solution for this issue and will now share it with all.
 
YOU DO NOT ABSOLUTELY NEED TO PURCHASE A NEW HARD DISK, THERE MAY BE NOTHING WRONG WITH YOUR HARD DISK!!!

I have had this error over and over again for the last few years but this time it was fatal. I was beginning a trip and then my laptop crashed with this infernal error. I have a backup imaged disk so I have been simply restoring the image and then copying over any updated files since the backup. However this time was different. I restored the drive and all and started my trip. When I got to my destination and attempted to use my laptop BOOM!!!; the error was back. So, I just restored again and updated again. This lasted until I turned the laptop off for the night and the very next morning, the error was back. Long story short, I did this routine a few more time and it eventually got worse until I just broke down a purchased a new bigger drive, I restored the image onto the drive and it worked for a little while until I rebooted. This went on for a few days while I was attempting to figure out what was happening. I searched the internet for a remedy to this issue but found not that would work in my situation. I had already tried everything that pertained to a laptop before the reset of the BIOS, change the cables, and replace the drive. The only thing that always worked was to reformat the drive and this did not make any sense. But since I saw that many others were having the same issue I was relieved that it was not only me and my machine. So I set out to find the cure (at least for the type of problem I had).

I had an epiphany after failing so many times. Why would this only work after reformatting the drive, which was which all the other people would just parrot that you should do. Well, I will tell you why this works and why you don’t have to do that. Windows using 48bit mode Disk Access can basically only understand up to 137GB for a boot partition (Microsoft is not even vaguely clear about this, it is supposed to work with SP2 and beyond) and my laptop currently had a 250GB upgraded from a 160GB which was upgraded from an 80GB drive that the laptop originally came with. So what I did was to partition the 250GB drive into an 80GB drive for the boot partition and the remainder of the drive for data on a logical partition. Now, everything is working fine without failure. So it seems I am destined to have two partitions on my laptop (which I originally attempted to get away from), one for the OS and programs and one for the data. This would probably be the scenario that most people would be in attempting to have everything on one large drive in one large partition. It seems that when my hard disk booted directly after restoring the image, Windows attempts to write something to the last sector of the partition and on a partition greater than 137GB that screws everything up when you attempt to boot after shutdown if data is written there. No amount of MBR fixing would ever resolve this issue.

This is my solution to one of the many error that "Disk Read Error" means.

It is confirmed that Windows trashes itself if you have a boot partition larger than 137GB and have data there also because Windows writes something at the end of the boot partition. Since using 48bit mode Disk Access the Windows boot process can't access anything past 137GB and will write the data at the 137GB sector or somewhere short of there depending on where the partition ending value gets truncated into 48bits. Now Windows works fine as long as you have not written any data to that same location; but when you do, that's when all the fun starts and you mysteriously cannot boot after you shutdown Windows no matter what you try. Now if you were to remove some data then shrink your partition down to under 137GB then you computer will mysteriously start working or will work after you use the Fixboot or Fixmbr procedures or replace the MBR and/or repair the partition.

It took a week to figure this out with trial and error, but now it can possible help someone else. As advanced as Windows is supposed to be why can't it have better error reporting capabilities than DOS???  “Disk Read Error”… PLEASE!!!

Applications used to fix issue:


Easeus Partition Manager - Free

It's best to remove your drive from your computer and run this on another computer with your drive in a USB enclosure or as a slave drive. Make sure you tell the partition manager to check the disk for errors and not to recover bad sectors. This will make sure the file system is intact and working. Running Easeus in this manner will also work wonders if your partition reports the type RAW. It will correct it and fix the partition and file system to return it to your normal partition type. This may also help if your system starts to boot Windows then faults and restarts.