Windows 7 won't reboot - hangs at aswrvrt.sys

[REDACTED]

Hi all--

I have the same problem as many others on this forum. My computer suddenly won't reboot in any mode. When I try safe mode, the computer hangs on aswrvrt.sys and goes to the blue screen with the floral design and a low-res arrow.

Of course I don't have a recovery disk.

It's an Acer running Windows 7. I think it's a 64-bit.

Help!

Thanks!

[essexboy]

What happened prior to the non-booting ?  I will PM the ISO links

Download the following three programmes to your desktop :
 
 
1.  Rufus 
 
For 64bit systems  
2. Windows 7 64bit RC
3. Farbar Recovery Scan Tool x64 
 
For 32bit systems
2.  Windows 7 RC
3. Farbar Recovery Scan Tool  
 
 
Insert the USB stick Then run Rufus
 

Select the ISO file on the desktop via the ISO icon. 
 
Press Start Burn

Then copy FRST to the same USB   
 
   
 
 
 
Insert the USB into the sick computer and start the computer.  First ensuring that the system is set to boot from USB 
Note: If you are not sure how to do that follow the instructions Here
 
Windows 7 and Vista screenshots 

When you reboot you will  see this.
 Click repair my computer  
 
 
Select your operating system  
 
 
Select Command prompt 
 
 
At the command prompt type the following  :
 
notepad and press Enter. 
The notepad opens. Under File menu select Open. 
Select "Computer" and find your flash drive letter and close the notepad. 
In the command window type e:\frst64.exe  or  e:\frst.exe dependant on system
 and press Enter 
Note: Replace letter e with the drive letter of your flash drive. 
The tool will start to run. 
When the tool opens click Yes to disclaimer. 

Press Scan button. 
It will make a log (FRST.txt) on the flash drive. Please copy and paste it to your reply.
 

[REDACTED]

Thank you.

I honestly can't remember what I was doing before I had to restart (it was a couple of days ago). I think the computer froze while I was switching screens, and I finally just turned it off and tried to reboot.

[essexboy]

Ta gives me something to think on

[REDACTED]

Here you go. FWIW, the process was really really slow. I had to wait for a very long time between each step. (Except the actual scan--that was super fast.)

[essexboy]

OK as I suspected

Run the recovery console and get to the command prompt

At the command prompt type the following :

chkdsk c: /r

Once it has completed then boot to normal mode

[REDACTED]

Thank you.

While I am waiting for the program to get back to the command prompt, I have clarification question. Right now my screen says Windows 7 is on (D:) Local Disk. Should I run chkdsk on C or D?

Karen

[essexboy]

Yes use D first

chkdsk d: /r

But be prepared to run c as well

[REDACTED]

Thank you for your patience.

I ran chkdsk on D,  but it hung up at 11% complete and stayed that way for a couple of hours. I aborted and ran it again. It's been hung up at 11% (again) for 20 minutes or so, though the number of files processed is higher than last time. Abort again and retry, or is there something else I should do?

[REDACTED]

Thank you for your patience.

I ran chkdsk on D,  but it hung up at 11% complete and stayed that way for a couple of hours. I aborted and ran it again. It's been hung up at 11% (again) for 20 minutes or so, though the number of files processed is higher than last time. Abort again and retry, or is there something else I should do?

Stage 4 of 5 both times.

[essexboy]

Sounds very much like a hard drive problem I am afraid as your MFT was corrupted, hence chkdsk which should have cured that

Is it finding errors on the drive

[REDACTED]

I left it running all night. It was at the same place this morning, but has now advanced from 79993 to 144462.
"Windows replaced bad clusters in file 80011 of name \PROGRA~1\AVASTS~1\Avast\Setup\VPS_32~1.VPX."

I guess I'll leave it running for a while in hopes that it is fixing things, not stuck. And consider a new hard drive.

[davexnet]

Really, a surface scan should be done,  either utilizing chkdsk, or the manufacturers utility before
deciding the drive is bad.  Those look like logical errors to me.  Not hard (surface) errors, but errors where the
pointers in the file table and/or other parts critical to NTFS have been corrupted for one reason or another.

I'm beginning to wonder if avast itself, in certain circumstances, trashes the disk, because there have been so many
incidents.  In some case, when essexboy has provided a script to "uninstall" avast using FRST, users
PC's miraculously recover, and other times they do not.

Similar problem happened to me once before, the boot stops at a black screen and goes no further.,
usually on Windows Vista and newer systems.

[REDACTED]

THANK YOU.

CHKDSK finished, finally. I've restarted the computer, and it seems to be working.

Here's what was displayed at the end, after 5 of 5 ran. Do you see any red flags?

I very much appreciate the help.

...
Adding 101 bad clusters to the Bad Clusters File.
Correcting error in the master file table's (MFT) BITMAP attribute.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

469931007 KB in total disk space.
168381128 KB in 227962 files.
136304 KB in 4233 indexes.
404 KB in bad sectors.
397567 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
301015604 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
117482751 total allocation units on disk.
75253901 alllocation units available on disk.
Failed to transfer logged messages to the event log with status 50.

[essexboy]

Nope that shows that it managed to fix the MFT

Any further problems ?