I have been using Avast for more than a year now, and have been happy with it. To maintain my computer, I do a full Standard scan once a month and have no problems. Recently, I was running out of space and hence, played around with the Properties of some folders. As some folders take some time to compile the statistics, and being impatient, I think I ended the operation a few times and clicked on the ‘Properties’ of a folder twice before the previous one came up.
Then, after that incident, I noticed:
Avast keeps hanging at a specific point “C:\System Volume Information\Catalog.wci”.
I removed “Catalog.wci” and then it started hanging at some folder in "C:\System Volume Information" folder. I disabled Windows System Restore, but Avast still hangs at that point.
I excluded the "C:\System Volume Information" folder altogether, but now, it hangs at “D:\Recycler” folder
I again excluded “D:\Recycler” folder, but now it hangs at some other point.
This is all very baffling to me. I surely cannot exclude all the folders it hangs at. And I cannot be sure if what I did with the Folder “Properties” caused all this to start.
An update: I just scheduled a full boot-up scan by Avast and the scan completed with no problems. Also, it completed in less than 2 hours, which is a lot faster than the normal 6 hours plus needed when running under Windows.
I have 2 questions:
Is the full boot-up scan (i.e. to scan all folders) the same as when I run under Windows?
Does it provide more clues as to why it always hang at specific points when running under Windows?
For security effects, yes.
The boot time scanning can’t handle some kind of archive. But archive files are inert, the resident will caught the virus if it is unpacked. On other side, boot time scanning has full access to the system (not files being used).
This is not normal, scanning shouldn’t hang.
Are you running the scanning into an account with admin rights?
Hi Tech, yes, I’m scanning using the account with admin rights, just like what I’ve been doing since the time I started using Avast! Like I mentioned, the problems started when I messed around with folder properties and then added a partition.
Ok, this might not be related to avast!, but my PerfectDisk 8.0 is also behaving weirdly. It has never hung when analysing the disks or performing the actual ‘defrag’, but today, it hung when I tried analysing or defragmenting for ALL my partitions.
This is like, so weird! Ok, say if avast encounters a Windows system error, is it possible to hang? I know I’m shooting quite blindly, but it’s about the best I can do before I reinstall Windows and all the programs. I guess if we could diagnose it, it would be beneficial to avast! too.
I should have just been checking the folders’ space taken up, deleted some files and added+formatted a new partition. You see, I was running out of disk space and was checking and doing some housekeeping. But I tried using avast! in my other computer and it works fine. So I guess I did do something bad to affect Windows’ structure/system or something.
No, avast! remains unchanged.
I’m using Windows XP
No, I just tried to defrag when Windows is running, which is what I have been doing for more than a year now. I will defrag my other computer and report back.
I’m not sure, but so far, it seems like it’s reformatting the disk to me, unless we hit the problem on the head soon.
Nope, can’t seem to see anything out of the ordinary. It’s ok, I guess I’ll just reformat the hard disk. It’s a strange occurrence, but thanks for your help anyway!