Windows 2000 boot looping

[DavidR]

Now I would never have though this to be a graphics driver issue, most strange an ugly mystery as you say.

[Gugus]

Hi,
On my PC (Motherboard ASUS P4GE-VM, Graphic ASUS V9180 v31.40G) I have the same symptome.
When I install Avast 4.7 it works fine.
I tried all the tips I've found on the forum (aswclear, remove reboot.txt and the registry the PendingFileRenameOpertion, update graphic driver)...hope less.
Efectively the boot in VGA mode works good. But that's not a solution!
I tried to install the newest Beta Version 4.8.1263 but I get a failure (bluescreen with the message:
{Driver entry Point not found.
\SystempRoot\Sysem32\Drivers\aswSP.sys could not locate the entrypoint PsGetProcessPeb in driver ntoskrnl.exe. --> should it work with win2k?}
What is the link between AVAST and the Graphic driver?
Thanks for your reply.

Gugus

[igor]

This particular problem (Drive entry point not found), occurring on Win2k, was fixed on Friday in the internal avast! build - i.e. it will be fixed in the next beta refresh or final release.

[ellishk97]

<quote>I'm not entirely sure I understand what this "The boot still loops though," or your original post "It gets stuck in a boot - disk check loop."</quote>

Sorry, I'm not sure of the correct language to use.

The sequence is something like this, for a normal boot:

1. Disk detection screen
2. Screen with 'hit enter to start W2k or hit F8 to choose another boot mode'
3. A b&w screen with ASCII graphics progress bar
4. A colour screen with Windows banner display and a blue progress bar
5. Popup messages about loading personal settings etc
6. Popup login screen

For a normal boot with Avast installed, it goes:

1 2 3 4
7. (Sounds I associate with a reboot) Disk check screen  with 'hit any key to skip checking'
1 2 3 4 7
1 2 3 4 7
....

It doesn't make any difference whether disk checking is done or skipped.  I've let it check many times, there are no disk errors.  In every other respect the system is behaving perfectly, no hang-up on shutdown.  The disk check request is triggered somehow by Avast, presumably because of the way it jumps from 4 to a reboot.  I've never seen this happen except with Avast installed.

I met this problem too  :'(
I wasted two days before I suspect Avast!  :'(
W2K boot up successfully after I uninstalled Avast! 

[DavidR]

Well the 4.8.1282 program update recently released incorporates that fix that Igor mentioned.

[igor]

I don't think ellishk97's problem is the same; either he installed the betaversion - and then I doubt it would take him two days to figure out the cause if it started right afterwards, or he sticked with the official versions, and then this particular problem couldn't have manifested.

[ellishk97]

I had installed Avast Home in 2006 and my system was fine until last week. It gets "stuck in a boot - disk check loop" suddently last week! I had tried to remove interface card one by one but it does "reboot-disk_check-reboot" infinitely. At last, the system boot win2k succesfully after Avast was uninstalled.

After I read this topoc, I download Avast Home 4.8.1282 (setupchs.exe  28528296 bytes). But the problem is STILL not solved ! 

[igor]

Are there any corresponding minidump files in WinNT\Minidump folder?
They might tell us where the problem is.

[ellishk97]

Is it safe to attach these files here ?
Do these files contain sensitive personal data ?

[DavidR]

No, not because it isn't safe, but because they are likely to be too big.

The file contains the contents of memory, etc. at the time of the crash, but I doubt they would have sensitive data.

You can use the ftp server to upload big files. Upload them to ftp://ftp.avast.com/incoming - Connect to the link and drag the file into the Right pane and drop it, that starts the upload, you don't have read access to this folder. Once you have done that post on the forums that you have uploaded them.

Before you do this make sure that the files have unique names so they can be identified as yours, e.g. ellishk97-filename (where filename is the existing file name, so you are just putting four forum name in front of it).

[igor]

Full dumps are big and may possibly contain sensitive data - but the minidumps are quite small (less than 100KB typically) and they hardly contain more than a small piece of code around the crash (i.e. I'd say you can safely attach them here, but you can also upload them to the FTP, of course).

[DavidR]

Thanks for the info Igor.

[ellishk97]

To Igor and DavidR:

I have uploaded a minidump to ftp. Please take a look.
It is got after v4.8.1290 installed.

[ellishk97]

 

[DavidR]

I don't work for Alwil, just an avast user like yourself, so I don't have access to the ftp site.

Nor do I have the tools or experience to analyse the dump files. So we will have to wait for some input from Igor.