Recently Avast suggested I run a boot sector scan to see what other problems there were. Like a dummy I agreed and waited while the scan took place. When it finished it gave me the message " continuing to boot" or words to that effect.
Then I saw the Windows desktop appear in the same configuration it had when XP was first installed! Al my desktop items that were there before that bleeding boot scan were all gone.
Thank God I had a restore point to use to repair the damage.
It would be nice if there was some sort of warning somewhere that would warn you what is about to happen to your machine if you run a boot sector scan.
This will be the last time I ever do that, or if I do wit won’t be without a most recent restore point and an Acronis image of that partition.
Fool my once shame on you…fool me twice shame on me.
Hmm, Why did avast say do a boot time scan? No issues with my XP loosing desktop icons. MUST HAVE MALWARE!! ON YOUR SYSTEM!
Did you have any other antivirus before installing avast?. This need to be removed with removal tools. Nortons /SYMANTECS? MACAFEES /AVG. ETC.
Test your computer with malware bytes free to check for malware
A boot sector scan, boot time scan or any other scan shouldn’t do anything like you’ve described, it is only a scan unless it has been set to move or delete stuff if it detects a problem.
I’d look at the scan settings. It should be set to “Ask” when it comes across anything suspicious.
If it is set to move stuff to the virus chest after checking them you could probably have repaired your desktop just by restoring the files. But this is yet again a lesson in how important putting in regular restore points can be.
First off, no malware on the system. The boot time scan was suggested because it found a Trojan in a .tmp file. I could and should have NOT run the boot time scan. Worst part was that this happened to me before and I was too stupid to remember what happened! The only files in the chest were the ones it found during the boot sector scan. I don’t see how I could have restored them if they were quarantined, and if they are viruses or whatever why try to restore them? Maybe I am not understanding your point on this part. I will check the boot time scan settings, it is set at the default whatever that might be.
Just because something is sent to virus chest does not mean it is a virus or malware or some sort, only that it has ben detected as such. I can’t count the number of things that have ended up in there or would have ended up in there unnecessarily if I hadn’t changed the settings to ‘Ask’ from sending stuff detected as suspicious to it immediately.
If you look in the Virus Chest you’ll probably see several entries marked as ‘No Virus’ and there is a right mouse click context menu if you highlight an entry which allows you to Restore it to where it came from very much like the Windows Recyle Bin.