I have recently installed AVAST Home (latest version). Now I CANT access any CDROMS and I CANT access my Zip Disks.
I uninstalled AVAST briefly, and GUESS WHAT?
I have access to everything again.
WHAT GIVES???
I want to use AVAST, but if it is going to lock me out of my drives like that, NO WAY. I would go elsewhere for my AV needs.
I have WinXP Pro running if you need to know the OS.
This is the ONLY software of any kind I’ve had do this to me.
HELP !!
This is a first for me (and I also did a forum search; nothing). Did you check the hardware manager to see if the drivers were okay while Avast was installed and you weren’t able to use removable drives? What AV was you using prior to Avast install? Did you uninstall previous AV before Avast installation or did you disable the other AV program instead?
Interesting… it would be worth trying to turn off boot sector scanning in the Standard Shield’s settings.
Click the avast tray icon, scroll the the list on the left to Standard Shield, double-click its icon, and uncheck the very first box on the dialog that appears…
I turned off boot sector scanning, and still same.
I will tinker some more I guess, but I am FAST becoming P.O’d.
In answer to all the questions…
ALL previous AV software removed, and YES I had FULL access to ALL
removables before installing Avast.
I give this software a big thumbs up on most things, but the thumbs down it is getting because of this far outways the thumbs up so far.
Any other bright ideas?? Anyone??
OK, try turning off Standard Shield completely.
I have tried that already, I even turned Avast ‘OFF’, and it still does it.
As I said the ONLY way to get my drives back is to COMPLETELY uninstall Avast.
I have used Nortons for a LONG time, and recently it blew up during a LiveUpdate, so I removed it, and tried BitDefender, it decided to produce an error about a nonexistent location on my machine, so after researching for good AV software i decided on your software, and now this happens. Why is it that AV software is so damn, wel I guess you could say “buggy”? I need this to work, otherwise I try to get Nortons re-installed and hope like hell it doesn’t blow up AGAIN.
Did you clean out the registry making sure all the other AVs keys were gone?
sometime i have had other software iterfere when a key was left in the reg eveen though it had been unistalled long ago?
Sorry i can’t be more help.
a good reg cleaner is called Regsupreme you download a trial version at the following addy http://www.macecraft.com/
Good Luck
First_c
Especially with Norton. We have seen a lot of Norton uninstalls that really doesn’t uninstall everything related to Norton that causes conflicts with new installs with different AV programs. Do a search in this forum for Norton. You’ll see.
OK, here’s an update:
I recently wiped out everything and started over.
I STILL have the same problem: I CANNOT use my Zip Drive, my burner, or my reader with Avast installed. And I even updated Avast to the latest version of Avast 4 for Home.
ALL drivers are fine, and I had FULL access to all of the above drives before I installed Avast.
And I have full access ONLY after I remove Avast from my system.
I am running WindowsXP Pro, have 288Mb RAM, am using ZAPro for firewall, etc…
I really need help here. I refuse to recommend this product (like I told their tech support via email) until this gets resolved.
Install AVG
If you haven’t format the HDD since then, that’s the cause, undoubtly… I have corrected the same trouble in the past.
See here.
Feel free to ask me any question about NAV unistallation… 
Just a shot, did you install avast! with the ZA turned off? Does this make any difference on accessing the HDD?
Did you install avast! through an administrator account?
Are your system file NTFS? Could you access the HDD by another user (if any)?
Be calm, you are in the best forum support in the web ;D
I hope he comes back and keeps us posted. It is a very strange problem he is having.
We have seen a lot of Norton uninstalls that really doesn't uninstall everything related to Norton that causes conflicts with new installs with different AV programs.but avast will refues to load won't it? so why would a leftover reg. key cause this?
OK, I will say it AGAIN:
Okay, I’ll ask if you have installed a different AV program and does that work fine on your system?
Okay, I’ll take your silence as a “no” and subsequent “I don’t know.”
No Summoner, avast! could load and you will think it’s ok but it won’t scan files at DOS level, I mean, you won’t be able to execute files, or open some others because of the mess that the Symantec drivers bring to the Registry keys: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet…\Control\VirtualDeviceDrivers >:(
[size=2]Do you people even actually read my post?
I have reformatted the drive, and ONLY Avast does this.
NO OTHER AV DOES IT.
Back before the reformat Norton didn’t lock me out of my removable media. Since then, and many reformats later, NO OTHER AV SOFTWARE has locked me out like this.
ONLY AVAST.
READ THIS before answering with comments from left field.[/size]
I am sorry if I seem a little “testy”, but after trying several AV’s and reformatting to get rid of all the “old crap” they put into the registry, I am a little pissed off.
None of the other AV’s lock me out of using my removable media. NONE.
Only Avast. As soon as I remove Avast from my system, I can use those drives. And you can see where I could be a little P.O.'d.
I mean it’s nice to have a decent AV, but I kind of like being able to use my CD reader, my CD burner, and my Zip Drive.
And those are the only drives that I know of that it locks out.
All of my HD partitions are fine, and my floppy drive is fine.
Now, I understand very well about the Norton thing, but I have since reformatted my drive several times, so therefore there are no left over reg keys in my system. Unless Norton has found a way for those somehow survive repartitioning and reformatting?
So, because nobody here knows whats going on, and since I dont get jack in the way of answers from the manufacturer, I can NOT recommend this software, even with the high marks it gets everywhere.
I am currently runnig AVG, its OK, but I actually liked the feature set of Avast.
So, IF anyone can help, please do so. I will continue monitoring this to see if it EVER gets resolved.