AV Software won't finish

[Rewster]

Lately (And this could be caused by some of the problems in my other thread) None of the AV programs I've been running have been able to run all the way through. They always freeze up around either 1292 files searched or 30k files. I've used the free AV program I see advertised around here frequently, Avast!, and AVG. Any ideas on what the problem could be?

[Greg]

Have you tried to run scandisk? Perhaps there are damaged files.

If that don't work, make a boot disk with cd-rom support and run the DOS mode version of AntiVir from a cd. That is a seperate download. I had a similar problem and that worked out for us.

[lmnobs]

The best way to run those progs with your probs is to run them in SAFE MODE if you can .If you are experirencing a thermal shut down as indicated in your other thread or hardware failure this would also cause the programs not to finish . Safe Mode (MAY)allow it to finish

[Zero Tolerance]

sounds like a bad sector or twenty on the hard drive to me. Do as nopp suggested and run scandisk and fix any errors.

Normally if a sector cant be fixed...it will at least be tagged as damaged or bad so it doesnt cause problems like you are experiencing after the fact.

goodluck!

[Rewster]

I'm sort of a novice to computers so ummm what is scandisk and where can i find it

[bigH2O]

Um, well, not to step on any toes here, but depending on your OS this may not actually be called scandisk any more. Scandisk was a DOS utility, and for all the flavors of Windows that ran on top of DOS, this was the proper utility. For XP or 2000, you'll need to run Chkdsk. Shut down any open applications, then go to Start/Run then type chkdsk.exe and press enter. This will run a preliminary test of your file structures, your indexes, and your security descriptors.

If it reports no problems back, Shut down all of your apps and go to Start/Run then type checkdsk /f and press enter. You will be told that you have to restart the computer to run this test. It will take some time, so be prepared to wait or do it just before you go to bed.

After you reboot the box, go to start/programs/accessories/system tools/disk defragmenter. Run a full defrag on the drive. This will reorganize your files in a consistent order that can be accessed in the most efficient order by the OS.

Please report back if you get your system fixed. Thanks.

[Rewster]

When both chkdsk.exe and /f were completed they didnt give me any kind of result page or anything. Is there a way i can check that? also I defragmented my computer so i hope that helps

[bigH2O]

If chkdsk /f had found any errors, it would have paused with a display of the errors prior to rebooting. You would have had to have acknowledged the erros prior to it restarting. That would have been your log.

Chkdsk also gives an exit code when it terminates. The codes are:
0 No errors were found.
1 Errors were found and fixed.
2 Disk cleanup, such as garbage collection, was performed, or cleanup was not performed because /f was not specified.
3 Could not check the disk, errors could not be fixed, or errors were not fixed because /f was not specified.

Any thing other than a 0 exit code and the machine will sit there and wait for you to ackngowlede it..

This process has to be ran on every volume you have. If you ran it from your boot drive (probably C: ), and you have other hard drives, you have to run it for each hdd. The syntax would be chkdsk D: /f, etc for each hard drive. You can chain the commands so that it does them all at the same time ie: chkdsk c: d: e: f: /f and it will run them all at one time. It will have to reboot between drive checks, so any reports other than a 0 exit code will be displayed until you respond.

[Zero Tolerance]

my bad...I had forgotten the namechange of the utility.

:D