How do I find hard drives?

[el_guapo]

Backstory: My Windows 7 is bricked. I have two SSDs on the machine: the "C" drive with my OS, antivirus, etc... and a "P" drive for programs. On top of that I have four HDDs set up in a RAID 10 for data.

My problem is either related to a virus or to AVG-- it's the AVGIDSEH.sys stall upon start-up issue for those familiar. Basically Windows stalls on startup and eventually reboots... and on and on.

I saw that one person beat this issue by installing Slax and renaming a couple of specific AVG files, then rebooting, starting in safe mode and uninstalling AVG all together. So, having tried several other approaches, I made a bootable USB for Slax, and I'm FINALLY looking at something. Progress!

Now the trick is this-- I can see the former "P" drive and that's it. I can't see the RAID drive, which didn't surprise me. But I can't see the former "C" drive either.

Can somebody please take this Linux noob by the hand and tell me how to figure out the source location of my "C" drive and then how to mount that so I can see it in Slax?

Secondary to that-- is there any way to get to the files on my RAID? Unfortunately I have an important work file on there that I need to get to asap.

My little head is pounding from all of this-- I'm barely staying afloat. Any help would be so appreciated. Thanks!

 

[chamaecyparis]

Puppy Linux is what I use -- it has been so long since using Slax, I am not confident to say how to do so. Lucid Puppy 5.2.8 would be a good choice.
http://www.puppylinux.com/download/

Just in case, Parted Magic is an easy one to use to see how partitions are recognized in Linux. Look for the File Systems info of each partition. This would be a good place to start.
http://partedmagic.com/doku.php?id=downloads

Then boot to the Puppy LiveCD and run Pmount to see your data within each partition and drive. It is a good idea to have a USB storage device of suitable size to hold whatever data may be desired to retrieve. Or Pburn could be used, but it is more complicated.

RAID is different. Linux sees the RAID card and not the hdd setup. It must communicate with the card first. Further research on your part is required (*i.e. which card is in use) before beginning. Presently, RAID in Linux is beyond me.

But this should get you started. -- Best wishes!

 

[el_guapo]

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply. I really appreciate it. I'll keep plugging!

 

[audiovoodoo]

This is easier than you think. The file you mention is located in:

c: \windows\system32\drivers\AVGIDSEH.sys

There seems to be mixed messages on this one, some say you have to rename the AVG directory under Program Files(x86) but that seems to be more that you need to get a boot.

You should be able to use ANY LiveCD that reads NTFS disks (that's almost all of them out there) and just rename the file. The fact that your raid array is not loaded should not be an issue as Windows is on the C drive.

The AVG forum guide to fixing it can be found here:

http://forums.avg.com/ww-en/avg-forums?sec=thread&act=show&id=94159

 

[audiovoodoo]

The other option would be to use the safe mode boot option under windows and confirm the loading of each driver, if you say no when prompted to load anything with AVG in the name it should boot as the driver is not going to get loaded.

 

[el_guapo]

That's interesting-- how do I gain driver control like that when booting in safe mode? Is it a certain flavor of safe mode?

 

[audiovoodoo]

Yes, and for the life of me I couldn't remember what it was... Believe it or not I've not needed it with Vista in the past 2 years. Looks like it changed a bit from my days with 95 and XP as I know I've done this in the past. Try this,

F8 before it starts to get the boot menu
From the list select 'Safe mode with command prompt'

This should just load the command shell without loading most drivers, it might be enough to give you a shell you can use to rename the file, easy way to do that is

c: \windows\system32\drivers\move AVGIDSEH.sys AVGIDSEH.bak

The other option is to try 'Repair computer' That should give you an option for a command line and load even less, you could also try the system restore option to go back to a point before the AVG update was applied.

I'll keep having a dig and see if I can find it, I never stumped up for Win7 so can't test I'm afraid.

 

[audiovoodoo]

Ahhh.. looks like it's under 'Debug Mode' or 'Startup repair'