Problem with hard drive after Avast upgrade

[neilchampion]

Hi,

Dont know if this is anything to do with Avast, but seems simliar to other users problems.

About 2 weeks age I installed the latest upgrade of Avast, it appeared in the bottom of my screen as a green pop up.

The next time I switched on after that the hard drive reported a disk error and would not start. I managed to get going again by using the computer setup and windows recovery program and rolling back a few days.

Yesterday (14.05.06) the computer would not switch on at all due to disk error, I have just taken it to PC world and they said that the hard drive is not readable and therefore requires reinstalling back to factory settings.

I do have the disks to do this, but would prefer not to.

Does anybody have any ideas?

Neil

[DavidR]

I would think that it is unrelated I can't see anything that would make the disk unreadable other than a disk error (possible failing HDD). If you were installing avast for the first time (which you weren't) and had another AV installed it could cause a system freeze, but not kill or damage a HDD. Being able to go back to before the update and still experiencing the same problems would tend to confirm it isn't an issue with avast.

However, your disk would still be readable, but you would probably have to boot into safe mode to be able to get in. Even using a boot floppy or other bootable device you should be able to see and read the files in the folders, etc. So it would appear that your HDD is about to give up the ghost so if you can get back into it again I suggest you ensure your data is backed up before it is lost completely.

[neilchampion]

Thanks for the info,

Have been looking on the web and think the problem might be caused by a boot virus, does this seem likley? and if so anybody the best method of clearing it?

[DavidR]

Whilst I doubt that this is a boot sector virus as any fault wouldn't be intermittent

A google search for boot virus returns many hits, this is just one which gives general information and other links http://kb.iu.edu/data/ahll.html.

Symptoms
A boot sector virus can cause a variety of boot or data retrieval problems. In some cases, data disappear from entire partitions. In other cases, the computer suddenly becomes unstable. Often the infected computer fails to start up or to find the hard drive. Also, error messages such as "Invalid system disk" may become prevalent.

Whilst you are suffering what could be a symptom there are other reasons why you might be getting this. Try a google search for the exact error message and see what that brings.

[Negeltu]

Not hijacking a thread or anything just letting you guys know that after installing avast on a Win 98 computer awhile back I encountered a disk error as well.  I ended up having to use Antivir on the machine. 

[DavidR]

It isn't hijacking when you are relating what you thing may be related to the problem.

However, we don't know if Neil is using win98, since you were able to install Antivir and not be completely unable to get into windows it may be unrelated (there are many and varied reasons for disk errors). I assume that you didn't find any boot sector or other virus with antivir ?

Some disk errors that get progressively more frequent ending up in a total inability to recognise/see the drive is more likely to be a hardware issue.

[Dwarden]

if drive become unreadable it's most likely due to faulty hardware itself ...

depends what that popup said maybe it was related to SMART warning ,
You should pay attention to such warning especially to what they say ...

another possibility is one of these trojans "encrypting" files on HDD and demanding "cash" for providing decryption...
but this fails in moment drive not start at all ...

i would like to see some diagnostic HDD test results on that drive