scanning ntfs partitions

[free_tibet]

Hello all, I have a question regarding some behaviour I've seen while scanning ntfs partitions.

Using avast! 4.7 (home), I ran a complete scan on a ntfs partition, I think it was about 20~30gb and probably 60% full.  The scan completed ridiculously quickly, like a matter of 2 or 3 seconds if not shorter, and  the "totaly size of files scanned" was only a few hundred kb.  Unfortunately, I can't reproduce this now since I don't currently have an ntfs formatted partition on my system.

I've done some looking around and I see that if archive scanning is not enabled, avast won't scan ADS, and I can't be sure if it was enabled or not.  I'm not sure if this would be the cause however, since practically everything on the drive seemed to be excluded from the scan.  Is anyone aware of any other issues that might have caused this?  Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[Lisandro]

Is anyone aware of any other issues that might have caused this?

Well, I won't call it an issue... as the on-demand scanning is working perfectly in NTFS partitions of mine.
Not like in yours... for sure it won't take seconds to finish, even without scanning archives.
We'll need more info to guess what happened...

[free_tibet]

Is there any chance it has something to do with what user account avast was installed under, i.e. it didn't have permission to access those files?  Sorry if these are kind of noob questions, I'd just like to figure out what might have been happening, so I know if it's just an error somewhere along the line on my part or something more nefarious.

[Lisandro]

Is there any chance it has something to do with what user account avast was installed under, i.e. it didn't have permission to access those files?

Most probably. On-demand scanning runs at user level.
You need to be an administrator even to schedule a boot-time scanning, that runs under system environment.

Sorry if these are kind of noob questions.

There aren't noob questions... we are all learning and sharing knowledge and experience 

[free_tibet]

Is there any chance it has something to do with what user account avast was installed under, i.e. it didn't have permission to access those files?

Most probably. On-demand scanning runs at user level.
You need to be an administrator even to schedule a boot-time scanning, that runs under system environment.

Ok, that's good to know..  It would have been installed under an administrator acct, but I can't be certain that it would have been the same administrator acct that created most of the files on the drive.  Is there any way to give avast access to all files, regardless of who created them?

There aren't noob questions... we are all learning and sharing knowledge and experience 

Also good to know, and thanks for the help 

[Lisandro]

Is there any way to give avast access to all files, regardless of who created them?

To avoid these situations, Windows uses the Group policies. I mean, the programs are installed under Administrator GROUP and not the user (administrator) itself.
If you change the Administrator of the computer, the new one should herein the old installations.
Well, if it does not work, the simpler will be uninstalling, booting, delete the avast folder installation, installing again.

[free_tibet]

Alright, since I don't have all the details I guess I'll just have to see how it works next time.   

One more question though - if the installation directory is a fat32 partition, could that cause this sort of behaviour when scanning ntfs folders?

[Lisandro]

One more question though - if the installation directory is a fat32 partition, could that cause this sort of behaviour when scanning ntfs folders?

Is this fat32 partition the one you boot to Windows XP?
If so, Windows XP will be able to read the NTFS partitions regardless where avast is installed, on fat32 or ntfs.
But, if you're using other operational system (like Windows 98 or Me) you won't be able to 'see' the NTFS partition, so no scanning... (unless you tweak your system).

[free_tibet]

No, I'm using XP so I guess that wasn't the problem.  I asked because i have encountered that problem before, not being able to access ntfs partitions from win98 or some boot disks.  I think there must have been something going on there that had nothing to do with my avast! installation.  I'll just have to keep an eye on it in the future to make sure I don't have portions of my hard drive that avast! can't monitor.  Thanks for your replies Tech  , much appreciated.

[DavidR]

I converted from win98 to XP Pro and retained the FAT32 format, whilst I didn't format any other partitions or my second drive to ntfs, I haven't experienced any problem like this.

Win98 can't recognise ntfs so you shouldn't be able access or see ntfs drives or partitions, the same is true of DOS it can recognise ntfs, but you can get an ntfsdos version that can recognise ntfs drives and or partitions.

So if you had a dual boot set-up with win98 and XP say, when running avast in win98 it may not be able to scan ntfs drives because win98 couldn't recognise them.

[Lisandro]

But you can get an ntfsdos version that can recognise ntfs drives and or partitions.

The read driver is for free.
The read&write driver is payed.