I have windows 2000 pro, I just downloaded the latest version of Avast for Home.When I installed it, I got a message saying there was a virus in memory. I then was asked to shutdown the pc, after the pc started to boot Avast ran(before windows came up). Then my pc reboots, I get the Win2K logo, and see a ‘brief’ blue screen of death but can’t see the error, and my pc then reboots. I can do an F8 and tried to run in safe mode, tried the last known config, and still my get the same thing. Any ideas on how to idenfity what the virus was, and how to capture the error. Before putting on Avast, I had rebooted several times, and never had a problem. I can use the emergengy disks to get to a DOS prompt and can see my files, but can’t get into windows.
Operating system restart needed by avast message could be solved, in some systems, by deleting the file \setup\reboot.txt
You can also check this registry entry (right after computer restart):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager, if it contains “PendingFileRenameOpertaions”.
Check its contents and if there’s only “reboot.txt” from avast4\setup folder, delete PendingFileRenameOperations, don’t delete any other key.
FunBuffy, do you have ZoneAlarm firewall installed? If so, please make sure you’re using its latest version (6.1.737.000) as the previous versiona are known to have some OS-stability related bugs.
Thanks
Vlk
I can’t modify the registry as I can’t get into windows. If I go into the recovery console, I can look at the ‘system root’ files but I can’t change directories to anything outside of the ‘system root’ files. Any other suggestions on getting windows backup would be helpful.
I do have zone Alarm installed, and I just put a new version on last month. I’m not sure what the version is.
Trouble thing :-\ 
I don’t think you can do anything from recovery console…
Can you boot into Safe Mode (F8 while booting) or not?
I can get to the selection for Safe Mode, but the same thing happends, as the WIN2000 logo screen appears, then I get a ‘flash of some error’ at a blue scrren and then the pc reboots. ???
Naybe overinstallation can solve the problem and you won’t lose your programs, settings, data, files, etc.
Just choose ‘Repair’ installation of Windows and install ‘over’ the old installation.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;315341
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314058
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm
You could ‘lose’ some time but maybe you avoid the terrible ‘format and start again’… :-[