Tonight i switched from windows 7 beta to RC, and the second program i wanted to install was avast (after firefox/graphics drivers).
I wanted to search up some new planes for my fsx (flight sim) while the installer was running, and i had the firefox window on another screen. I was searching for “fsx” and hit enter, but sometime between f and s or x an alertbox took over the focus and recieved the enter-stroke, whereupon my computer restarts! I never managed to see what it was because it all happened very quick, but the only other program running was the avast installer. I had chosen my options in the installer and continued when this happened.
Now my computer wont boot at all!
Error:
Status: 0xc000000e
Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible
I have a total of 4 drives installed (total 2TB), and a dual boot of xp/win7.
The bios is having problems finding the drives, only one of the drives is seen!
And this is a pure data drive, as in no OS on it.
The dvd-drive is not detected either! So i cant run any recovery/utilities discs
Are the drives somehow locked by the installer?? What could be going on?
Please help, if I lose my 2 tb’s of data my mind goes too!
In the panic that followed and due to the fact I had just gotten home from vacation, I forgot that I just before I left put most of my data on an external usb-drive(1 TB, full!) which still works fine when connected to another computer, puh!!
So most of my data are safe!
The things really missing is my email, pictures and several other files still on one of the inaccessible drives.
The dvddrive is my only ide-drive, and the three (not four as I said earlier) are sata.
I have a total of four sata ports in groups of two, and the two drives in one group are inaccessible, but the single drive in the other group seems ok.
When I get off work later I’ll try to swap things around a bit and see what can be done.
I’m bringing the drives to the office to see if they can be read in another computer to get the data off of them.
I was able to recover data from one of the drives (the one still recognized by bios) using a laptop and a sata-to-usb adapter.
This is where my email, pictures and other stuff was, so i guess you can call that luck!
However, the other drive i tried using the same adapter does not show up in ‘My computer’, but using computer management i see the drive listed with a yellow exclamation mark as ‘dynamic’ and ‘external’.
This rules out a failed sata/ide-controller in my main comp, and I’m more certain than ever that the interrupted Avast-installation somehow left the drive(s) in a state which makes them unreadable by bios and windows. This goes for the DVD-drive as well.
If would very much like to get in contact with a representative from Avast on this issue.
While it is conceivable that a failed software installation could corrupt data on a hard disk so as to render it unreadable, I don’t believe it could possibly make the drive undetectable by the m/board BIOS. Even more so for an IDE DVD drive.
It’s possible that the m/board BIOS is corrupted but in that case the board would not detect any drives, or even boot at all.
The spontaneous restart is indicative of a hardware failure and it seems likely more than a mere coincidence that access to both the SATA hard disk and the IDE DVD drive disappeared simultaneously.
Was the now ‘dynamic’ drive ‘dynamic’ or ‘basic’ before you lost accessibility?
Did you try changing the BIOS SATA setting to/from RAID/IDE/JBOD?
I hear you, but since Avast isn’t any kind of software, maybe it’s got some special routines to protect the drives/files while it’s installing?
I don’t know, the devs might shed some light on this.
Yeah, I would rule out corrupted bios, as it loads, i can change/save settings, and one drive is detected.
And the odds for two drives and a dvd to call it a night at the same time…? Not very high. Or i should play the lottery
The restart wasn’t spontaneous in the normal sense as there was an alert/popup of some sort. I barely registered it was there,didn’t notice any colors or text or anything else. It all happened in a split second! My guess is the installer somehow received the x and enter keystroke, and shut itself and the computer down. ???
I can’t remember whether it was dynamic or basic, could’ve been either one I guess…
I haven’t tried changing any bios-setting, as everything have been working until that fatal install…
