Bug Report 5.0.594

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Avast! v5 locks my computer up when I try to use my WD 500g external passport hard drive and I have to disable Avast shield when ever I want to use my hard drive .
I thought it might be a problem with my laptop or my hard drive, but my friends computer with avast free had the same problem and when I uninstalled the anti virus, i could use the hard drive without any problem

My system is :
dell precision M4300 with windows 7 /32bit/

2

Any other security program that could interfere?
Which was your old antivirus before avast?
Is the external hard drive clean of virus?

3

Thank you for your respond,

Before Avast 5 ,I had Avast 4 and Hard drive was working perfectly with it.
I’m using Comodo Firewall (Without defense+)
I’m 99.9% Sure this problem related to Avast 5, because I’ve tested the hard drive with other systems with Avast 5 and they had the same problem then when I changed the antiviruse , HD worked without any problem . Also I didn’t have this problem before upgrading to Avast 5.

4

Hi, you have the HD connected via USB ?

5

Yes , I’m Using USB connection.

6

Im using external WD 320 Gigs and it works perfectly.

7

You say that you tested Avast5 on other systems. Try to figure out what
program or programs are on your computer and those where you also tested
and had the same problem. Doing this, might help you figure out if there is
a program that all of those computers is using and is conflicting with Avast.
Bo

8

The problem is, when i removed Avast 5 and installed avast 4 again, everything seems to work fine !

9

When you changed the AV to another AV, what was it and did you remove ALL remnants of it per the vendor’s instructions?

Have you checked to see if your FW is blocking anything from Avast?

Have you run an on-demand scanner to test for malware like MBAM?

  1. Check your computer for malware with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (MBAM)
  2. Free http://www.malwarebytes.org/.
  3. After install click update so you have latest database before scanning.
  4. Click the “remove selected” button to quarantine anything found.
  5. Please post any positive scan log here (cut and paste the log).
10

It sounds like a silly question: do you have many data on your external HD? If yes, then it could take a long time until Avast! scanned all the files when you start to work with the external HD. I also use a external 500gb WD HD without problems on Win 7 Home Premium 32 bit. The only thing sometimes happens to me: i normally use it as network drive. But when i connect it directly to my PC, sometimes i must mount it first to show it at my explorer.

And last but not least: you also can try a clean install of Avast!:

  1. Save a copy of newest version of Avast (5.0.594) for the version you need and save it to your HDD:
    Free – http://files.avast.com/iavs5x/setup_av_free.exe
    Pro – http://files.avast.com/iavs5x/setup_av_pro.exe
    AIS – http://files.avast.com/iavs5x/setup_ais.exe

  2. Download the Avast Uninstall Utility, aswClear5.exe http://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility and save it to your HDD.

  3. Disconnect from the Internet at this time.

  4. Uninstall Avast through “Add/Remove Programs”.

  5. Boot into Safe Mode and run the Avast Uninstall Tool.

  6. Reboot twice.

  7. Clean your computer up (clean up cache, etc.).

  8. Install the newest version of Avast and reboot twice.

  9. Get Internet access and update Avast definitions.

  10. Register your copy or add the license key for Free, Pro or AIS.

  11. Reset your settings, if needed.

Greetz
DJBone

11

@ DJBone,

I need the OP to answer my questions prior to doing a clean install first, otherwise the existing problems may persist. So we will have to wait for the OP to respond. Thank you though.

12

OK. Let’s wait for his answer…

Greetz
DJBone

13

DJBone, now that you are over 20 posts, you should create your signature in your Profile (top of page) so that others can help you and you can assist others. Thanks. :wink:

14

Thank you all for your help,

I did a clean Install for Avast 5 but I think, as DJ bone said the problem might happen because of too much data on my HD.( I have more than 400G data on my HD) but I still want to know why this happens only with Avast 5 ! I’m sure my system is clean and doesn’t have any viruses .
Anyway I prefer to use Avast 4 instead of switching to another anti virus.

15

The support for 4.0 will end at the end of the year. So I would work with 5.0 for now and see how it goes. If you think you have too much on your HD, perhaps get a backup and see if this helps. Let us know how things go. :slight_smile:

16

I think , I’m going to install Avast 5 again and disable the shield when ever I want to use my External HD ;D

17

Every time I connected a USB flash drive on my computer, it would lock up and AvastSvc.exe usage would go to 90+%. I sent a minidump to avast!, hoping it would help. When this would happen, I would have to do a repair, but the problem would show up again when the flash drive was inserted. But, for some reason after an update I no longer have these issues.

18

My WD250gb works fine, I don’t have to edit anything…

19

It’s done :slight_smile:

20

Bennieboj, have you done an Avast Removable Media Scan of your USB flash drive to make sure it is clean?

I still suggest you download MBAM (see my prior post on how to do it) as an on-demand (when you need it…not resident) scanner. It is compatible with Avast, and tends to pick up things that other AV’s don’t pick up.

By disabling the shield, as you are doing now, is just a work-around…but not fixing the core problem. I realize you are waiting for the minidump to be analyzed, but in the meantime, you should check to make sure your system is clean.