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Tom's Hardware > Forum > Windows XP > General Discussion > [Solved] Disk boot failure after avast update

[Solved] Disk boot failure after avast update

Forum Windows XP : General Discussion [Solved] Disk boot failure after avast update

Okay. I woke up this morning and i updated my avast. While avast was updating, i was typing, and talking with my friend on chat, and as i press enter, an avast confirmation window popped up. I wasn't able to read it, and i accidentally pressed the OK button or whatever i pressed cause it restarted my PC. Now my problem is that my PC wont boot. I just gets stuck in "Disk boot failure".

I checked Bios boot options, and it was all fine.
I use XP x64

i try to reformat but after formatting and XP restarts computer to continue setup, it just returns to the Format step, and does not continue to the other step, WTF did avast do to my computer?!?!?

Reply to mongii

any help?

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to mongii

mongii wrote :

any help?

I don't like Avast and have been somewhat chastised for saying so in the past. Now, I watch the post come in as I always have from people that get burned by that thing. (thinking now, "Another one bites the dust" )

Me thinks you need a stronger program to re-partition and format your drive, one that will initialize it as though it was a new drive. I run X64 at times (I dual-boot) and it has never crashed since 2004.

Download this ISO image file and burn it to CD. Boot with it and re-partition and format the drive.
Choose advanced settings, custom partitions when you run it. It's all very self-explanatory once you look around.

Get file named "Hitachi" from me by clicking HERE.

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Reply to tigsounds

UPDATES: today is Friday 10th and i have been dealing with this problem since sunday.

So after avast updated my computer ive been getting "Disk boot failure" error.

From Monday-Tuesday i have been try to reformat the drive, but as i said in the original post, that XP format wont continue after reboot. But the weird thing is that it would work sometimes.

So i successfully reinstalled XP once since sunday, but after a few restarts in the same day, it went back to "Disk Boot Faiure"

Now this is what i have been doing:

Used UBCD to diagnose Hard Drive: 2 Diagnostic tools that i used said that it has 0 errors.

Checked Cables a lot of times, interchanged cd-rom cables, with HDD cables, reseated HDD.

Reset CMOS

Ran Memtest for 2 hours: 0 errors

Ran Test Disk in UBCD: and it recognized the partitions in the HDD, other tools dont recgonize the partitions tho and just says that its unpartitioned.

Since i saw that partitions are still there, i have been fiddling with the XP recovery console, but all it says is C:\>, where it should be like this C:\WINDOWS>. And commands like Fixboot, and Bootcfg, chkdsk do not work, since the drive isn't read i think.

But in bios, the drive can be seen.

And, since this happened, with combination of all those things that i have been doing, the PC would intermittently work, but after a few restarts it would revert to "disk boot failure".

And today, i followed this guide that i read: http://stopmalvertising.com/malwar [...] age-2.html

So i did that and i was able to boot perfectly, and when i was using it i noticed that it said that it found a new hardware, and it wants to restart my computer, but i ddint attach anything to the computer.

But before restarting, as the guide said, I ran chkdsk in cmd, i did that and restarted. After booting it ran the chkdsk, and restarted again. But now after the XP logo loading screen i get a BSOD saying: "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL"

So i loaded up the recovery console and to my surprise it now sees C:\WINDOWS>, so i tried to bootcfg /rebuild, fixboot, but that did nothing. So i got tired of trying to fix the PC, but i felt good cause now i thought taht my only problem was a BSOD. So i shut off the computer thinking that i woould continue it later.

So now i turn it on again and as usual it BSOD after XP logo loading screen.

But this time, when it rebooted, the dreaded "Disk boot failure" screen is back, and recover console cannot see windows installation again.

So im back to zero. Now what do i do? Please help.

Quote :

Get file named "Hitachi" from me by clicking HERE.

what is that hitachi file exactly, can i find that in UBCD, cause i have that now, and it has some files with the name hitachi on it. and btw i have a WD drive. an x48-ds5 gigabyte mobo, and E7400.

Message edited by mongii on 06-11-2011 at 08:00:47 AM

Reply to mongii

opened Data lifeguard Tools from ubcd, and clicked on Display technical Hard drive info
it said under MBR partition table: Bootable: false, Begin CHS: 0, End CHS:0

Reply to mongii

anyone?

Reply to mongii

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

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Reply to tigsounds

Quote :

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

ill try your suggestion tomorrow kind sir, i dont has blank CD today, just a usb. imma get some from store tomorrow.

what do u think about what i have written in my updates post? and can i use other format and partition tool to do the job such as gparted, or something else?

in the mean time, anyone else has idea?

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by mongii on 06-11-2011 at 07:34:20 AM

Reply to mongii

mongii wrote :

ill try your suggestion tomorrow kind sir,
what do u think about what i have written in my updates post?

"Kind sir" ??? who? not me! I'm one of the bigger jerks around here. You're not a 'newcomer' so you get treated better.

You give better details than most that come here. It's details that will get useful results.
That file I advised to download... It's a matter of "Try it, you'll like it"

Just remember this: It is an ISO file. It isn't just a matter of burning it to CD. You must use a program that can burn an ISO image back to standard CD format. Nero works good.

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Reply to tigsounds

okok thanks, thats the first thing ill do in the morning.

im serious your the only one who reply to my post thanks

Quote :

Just remember this: It is an ISO file. It isn't just a matter of burning it to CD. You must use a program that can burn an ISO image back to standard CD format. Nero works good.

lol, dont worry i can easily google that. ive been googling since sunday

Message edited by mongii on 06-11-2011 at 07:54:36 AM

Reply to mongii

It's not that I'm the only one that would answer your post. Often times, we see someone has a good handle on what's happening and let them go with it. If someone else had an idea they would chime in for sure. We exchange knowledge here, that is our function.

Edit: Get a free ISO burner HERE

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by tigsounds on 06-11-2011 at 08:01:11 AM

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Reply to tigsounds

tigsounds wrote :

OK i understand.

Cool thanks man, can't wait to do this!

Reply to mongii

hmm, i bought a maxwell CD-R cd's, and burned the file.

But when i put it on my PC to boot on, it said

Error: No CD-ROM drive found
Error: IDE CD-ROM device driver not installed.
Command or file name not recognized.

and some other stuff at the bottom. how come? the windows CD works fine.

I have a SATA HDD, and SATA cd drive.

I also ran this CD on my laptop at bootup, and it said the same thing.

But when i run it on windows it works fine. and it has an option to make a bootable Diskette, but my PC does not have a diskette drive.

So how do i make it bootable, did i burn it wrong? should i have used a DVD kind or something?

Message edited by mongii on 06-12-2011 at 03:17:52 AM

Reply to mongii

I really don't think avast did this.Sounds like some kind of hardware glitch or failure.

Message edited by Area51reopened on 06-12-2011 at 03:01:16 AM

Reply to Area51reopened

i dunno, this happened in like 15 min of use in sunday morning, when avast restarted after those blue updates that asks for your permission, an avast window popped up and then i pressed enter, PC restarted, then this showed up.

No previous sign of any hardware problems before. but i dont know, it dont think its hardware tho, theres just something wrong with HDD i think, its not broken but theres something wrong with it.

Message edited by mongii on 06-12-2011 at 03:06:40 AM

Reply to mongii

okay, i searched the name of the prgram that tigsounds gave me, and i saw this on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCYFEElHRmE

I saw that the program is 100% similar with WD lifeguard tools, which is on UBCD. So i decided to burn UBCD to CD, since i think the tools in it work better when booting from CD rather than a USB.

So, i followed that youtube video, and also tigsounds advice, and right now im @ the XP desktop updating through windows update.

it worked! but im not surprised since some stuff do work intermitently.

Now the question is how long is this gonna last until boot disk failure comes back.

If it does come back u think its the HDD?

Thanks!

PS: tigsounds, what anti-virus do u suggest i use? i prefer the free ones

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by mongii on 06-12-2011 at 09:23:40 AM

Reply to mongii

mongii wrote :

okay, i searched the name of the prgram that tigsounds gave me, and i saw this on youtube.

I saw that the program is 100% similar with WD lifeguard tools,

PS: tigsounds, what anti-virus do u suggest i use? i prefer the free ones

It's not exactly 100% but real close. It is what people need to truly re-part and format their drives. The Windows format seems to be lacking something... important.

I like Kaspersky Anti-virus. It's from Russia and they are quite defensive about security. It's only free for a month. I don't put my system security in the hands of someone that can't even get a dime for their program.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012 is available, get free trial HERE

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Reply to tigsounds

okay after 2 restarts, after installing a few windows updates it went back to disk boot failure.

This is the quickest return to disk boot failure ever, since the other times i successfully boot into windows it would last up to more restarts and actually finish windows updates. but this one did not even let me finish all the updates.

So you guys think its HDD?

Cause its not the wires, i interchanged my cd-rom cable with HDD cable and it still the same.

But theres no sound of a hardware failure coming from the HDD tho, and i used 2 diagnostic tools to do a "surface scan", i think that's whats it called, and they said it had 0 errors.

Checked with Test Disk, and partitions are still there.

Its like it keeps losing its MBR, or partition table or something, or the thing that allows it to boot and be read as a bootable drive.

Message edited by mongii on 06-12-2011 at 06:58:34 PM

Reply to mongii

Buy a new hdd it's failing!

Reply to Area51reopened

Awww, okay okay ill try and get a new one, but that was only 2 years old tho, but it was used everyday, for long hours sometimes even 24 hours.

even though surface scan said it was fine?

Message edited by mongii on 06-12-2011 at 07:00:38 PM

Reply to mongii

okay i went to the WD website and tried to check the warranty, and it was still in warranty!!!

now my problem is, since no errors can be seen through WD diagnostic program that i run through UBCD, what if they just do the same thing when i send my HDD, and they get same results 0 errors, do i not get a replacement?

lol, warranty expires on july 4

okay i decided to go with the RMA, but what reason do i choose?

bad sector
poor performance
will not power up
smart error
fails diagnostic
drive clicks
incompatibility
other

Message edited by mongii on 06-12-2011 at 07:58:04 PM

Reply to mongii

fails diagnostic

Reply to Area51reopened

how come? it does not fail diagnostic when i do it.

Reply to mongii

other!

Reply to Area51reopened

Best answer

"Other" then attach note: "Intermittent failure."

Doesn't matter if it works or not when they get it.

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Reply to tigsounds

okok cool thanks!

you think its HDD tigsounds, and area51?

cause i dont think its anything else. i dont think so.

okay, i guess thats it, ill just make another thread if i still get an error with my new HDD

Thanks again community!

Message edited by mongii on 06-12-2011 at 09:26:54 PM

Reply to mongii

Best answer selected by mongii.

Reply to mongii

sorry to hear your problems
BUT
you are not alone

My Lenovo 3000 N500 with XP SP3 crashed IN EXACTLY THE SAME CIRCUMSTANCES during a recent AVAST update in the past few days
I could no longer boot - or do anything

I had to reinstall everything
Fortunately I had backed up data recently
I assumed I had done something wrong

Then in the past couple of days after update of AVAST 27/28 March
My Dell XPS720 Quad Core crashed and became totally non responsive
My BIOS seems to have been corrupted and I am in the process of reformatting and reinstalling everything on all drives

Again I had fortunately backed everything up a week ago

I NOW ASSUME THAT AVAST IS A FRONT for someone who wants to destroy every pc and stop people using computers