Windows NT4 crash after Avast update

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Today all my Windows NT4 Workstation stopped working after Avast program update.

The update is set to automatic, so today this computers updated the program to version 4.5 and asked for reboot. After reboot, I only get a blue screen with a STOP 0x0000001E KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED, and I can’t use the computer.

It happened with my 3 computers running NT4 Wks. First it happened with 2 machines, them I went to the third one, that was powered off. I turned it on and logged in. Avast auto-updated itself and asked me for reboot. Then the problem happened on this machine.

I’m using Avast Professional in portuguese. All NT4 SP6 in brazilian portuguese too.

What can I do to recover this machines?

Thanks!
Erick

2

What file is named in the error message?

3

Try temporarily deleting \windows\system32\drivers\aswTdi.sys. Does it “solve” the problem? (ie. the machine boots)

Thanks
Vlk

4

Hi,

I’m having the same Problem. I’m getting a bluescreen, every time I try to start up my NT4 System.

I’ve attached a picture of the BoD. Hope it helps.

Best regards,
Tobias

5

If you can’t upload the file just send it to me email, please. Thx.

6

Yes, deleting \windows\system32\drivers\aswTdi.sys makes the machine boot.

Thanks for all help, I’m in direct contact with tech support.

7

Hi,

I can’t attach a picture. Is there something wrong with the board?

Tobias

8
Thanks for all help, I'm in direct contact with tech support.

Well, - which tech support? :wink:

Anyway, do you think you could send me a screenshot (e.g. a digital camera shot) of the BSOD?

Thanks

9

U got mail :wink:

10

Thanks, got it. BTW how much memory does the machine have? How large is the dump file (\windows\memory.dmp) if you zip it up? Do you think you could e.g. expose it on a web site so that I could download it?

Thanks.
Vlk

11

Hi,

the machine has 128MB memory.
Unfortunatly I can’t access the file memory.dmp, because Windows NT doesn’t start and is the only OS on the machine.
And because of the NTFS I can’t access the file with a simple DOS bootdisk. Sorry.

Is there any other way to access the file?

Tobias

12

Well NT4 is difficult:

  • no safe mode :frowning:
  • no recovery console :frowning:

If you have a secondary computer with a cd writer, you could use the BART CD demo. But it’s quite a big download (~65MB)

It’s usually much easier to install a second OS (nt, 2k, xp) to a different partition and via it access the NTFS disk… :-\

13

You should be able to access the partition if you boot from a Windows XP/2k/2k3 cd also.

Alternitive:
add ntfs for dos from Sysinternals to the dos bootdisk and it should also work.

14

Could you please try replacing the \windows\system32\drivers\aswTdi.sys file by this one: http://www2.asw.cz/~vlk/aswTdi.sys and see if it helps?

Thanks
Vlk

15

Anyone else having the same problem?
We’d need to know if the problem is fixed after applying the fixed driver.

Thanks!
Vlk

16

Hi,

I’m using a german NT4/SP6 and tried the new asptdi.sys. The system booted OK but after logging on to the system, it waited for ever. It became unusable, because the cursor showed the hourglass permanently. With another system I connected to the machine and disbled the AVAST service and renamed all files starting with asw* in winnt/system32/drivers. After that I could restart the system, it works, but of course AVAST is not running.

What can I do to get my system as well as AVAST up and running again?

Greetings from Germany

Reiner

17

so, you used the fixed nt4 aswtdi.sys, right ?
could you please test it also without aswtdi.sys (e.g. you can rename it) - it would be very useful to know if aswtdi.sys caused that. Thanks.

18

I’am back in one hour to test it. But it seems like it. After I could use the system (deleting the asw* files) I started the update service and updated the system, restarted it and again the same problem.

Reiner

19

Sorry i dont know if i got you: can you reinstall v4.5, just delete aswtdi.sys (from \system32\drivers folder) and check it slows down your system or not? If it dont help, try to delete (or move to temp directory) aswMon.sys from the same directory ?

20

Hi,

ok, that’s what I did:

Using the update service I updated the system yesterday.
This morning I tried to start my system and what happend was: I got the normal blue start screen where NT normally shows the dots for the devices. I never saw the dots, but my system went directly to BIOS start screen.
After reading the forum, I exchanged the aswtdi.sys. This helped so far, that I saw the dots, the logon screen appeared and I could logon to the system. However, all my programs in autostart an from the run-HKEY never showed up. Instead I got the hourglass and the system seemed to lock-up.
I then stopped the avast service and renamed the asw* files in winnt/system32/drivers.
After that I could start and use my system normally. Of course avast was not running.
After that I started the update service manually and run Program-Update. What I think happend was that the update service realized that I had downloaded the update recently and reinstalled the previously renamed asw* files. I rebooted and the same thing (no dots, reboot from bios) happened. I checked again and saw that the update service had reinstalled the renamed files, and of course the old aswtdi.sys file as well.

Do you want me to do something else? Just let me know

Reiner