Windows event viewer on Avast Web Scanner

[BNG]

Message error with the dreaded Big Red X. I only noticed it in the last several days after installing a new 320 gig drive with a disk image of XP Home (the original Drive is now a backup set aside if needed). The system boots up fine with the new drive, but after reading that drives larger then 137 gigabytes can cause problems I resized the drive to under 137 gigs stay out of trouble with the operating system limitations. One problem that induced me to take these measures was that my computer began to simply stop responding after extended use for no obvious reason sadly during a Avast virus scan.

[olddog]

BNG

I'm not sure what your question is. From your comment about resizing your drive down to 137GB, it would appear you think either your motherboard bios does not support 48Bit LBA addressing, and/or you are using an operating system that is prior to XP SPI. Perhaps the article at http://www.48bitlba.com/ may help.

What exactly is the "Message error with the dreaded Big Red X" to which you refer.

[BNG]

The event viewer under windows XP reports that the web scanner terminated unexpectedly. Apparently, it's not Avast thats causing the problem as I un installed Avast, and the problem is still occurring. I reinstalled Avast again, but disabled the web scanner as it's still terminating unexpectedly as reported in the event viewer. Don't really know what else to report. Strangely, the problem began happening after I made a disk image of my original hard drive and am now using the image copy on my new drive as my XP boot disk with the original drive safely put away as a backup of my XP Home install. Are there any known issues using Avast under these described conditions? Or would it be better to go back to using the original drive again and just reformat the new 320 gig drive and use it for extra storage space? Thanks BNG.

[Lisandro]

Can you check the folder <avast>\data\log
Are there any files called unpXXXX there  (where XXXX is a random number)?
If so, send them to vlk (at) avast.com
They may contain more information about the problem (maybe a link to this thread).

Maybe you can activate logging in WebShield...
1. Disable avast self-defense module: Program settings > Troubleshooting tab of settings.
2. Edit <avast>\data\avast4.ini file with Notepad.
3. Find the section [WebScanner]
4. Add the line:
    EnableLogging=1
5. Restart Web Shield in XP\Vista (terminate and start again) or whole PC in case of Win98
6. Browse (trying to access some webpages)

The log file are <avast>\data\log\ashwebsv.log and ashwebsv.ws.
They would be accessible when WebShield is terminated again.
Post them here or send by mail to rypacek (at) asw.cz
After that, disable the logging to avoid a big log file.

Oh, enable the self-defense module again after that.

[igor]

Btw, the avast4.ini file can be edited without disabling self-defence first... you only have to use Notepad to do that.

I'm slightly confused about the problem itself... you say "Apparently, it's not Avast thats causing the problem as I un installed Avast, and the problem is still occurring"... which sounds like avast! Web Scanner is crashing even when it's not there?? (as it's been uninstalled)
Are there any .mdmp files in <avast4>\Data\Log folder?

[olddog]

BNG

I have not experienced any problems with Avast in so far as drive partitions restored from images (in my case using Acronis True image) if that is what you are asking, however since starting to use Avast, I have only restored operating partition images back to the drive they were made from, and not to a different drive. I don't replace the MBR or track 0 during the restore operation. You have not said what you used to copy the partition image to the new drive and so I don't know whether you replaced the MBR or track 0 in the process.

You also didn't answer my query about whether your bios supports 48bit LBA. You did say you are using XP, however it's my understanding that XP didn't support 48 bit LBA until SP1, and you didn't mention what level of patches you are up to. Depending on exactly what the situation is, simply limiting the size of a large drive to below 137GB in an installation that doesn't suport 48bit LBA may not guarantee that loss of data will not occur and it is usual to employ one of the available software solutions.

I too don't understand how a problem to do with the Web scanner terminating can still occur when you have uninstalled the program.

[BNG]

The drive image was created with a application called Miray's HDCLONE. The product essentially creates a bootable floppy disk from where it runs in DOS and executes the drive to drive copy disk image routine from the old drive to the new drive. That went fine as far as I can tell although I did have to revalidate XP HOME on Microsofts validation site. My guess is that it must have something to do with migrating my OS over to a new drive. Don't really now for sure?

Oh, on a side note I used another application called Eusing Free Registry Cleaner to clean up my systems registry and it found something like over 1,800 errors and that in itself appears to have stabilized the OS and my Avast installation as well. The Avast web scanner after the inital failure reloads again (successfully) as viewed the XP event viewer and appears to be working after the first attempt.

The event viewer lists the error cause as relating to the service not responding in a timely fashion; if that makes any sense to anyone.