[Geisthander]

So, out of the blue (it seems to me, anyway), my computer stopped booting into Windows (specifically Windows 7 Home Premium x64).  It started with "Bootmgr is missing" and after a fair few attempted fixes, including EasyRE and attempted startup fixes with a Windows disc, as well as a Windows recovery disc, I've now got to the point where I'm seeing that aswRvrt.sys is corrupt with status 0xc0000098.

 

I'm aware that this is probably just avast interacting with some bit of detritus from the many years I've had the computer (in which it's worked fine).

 

Any advice would be appreciated because I'm trying hard to avoid wiping and reinstalling everything.

 

I've attached my FRST.txt.

Attached Files

•  FRST.txt   23.39KB   752 downloads

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2018-08-18 09:21 - 2018-08-18 09:21 - 000003544 ____N C:\bootsqm.dat
2018-08-18 09:16 - 2018-08-18 09:16 - 000000000 __SHD C:\found.000

 

 

This is an indication that check disk ran and recovered some files that were on a bad sector on the hard drive so your hard drive had a problem.  Unfortunately it appears that the sector that failed was critical to the boot process.

 

There are several Avast driver files missing (actually the files are there but have nothing in them) and some odd stuff from Avast's cleanup program.  We can try to remove them:

 

Download the attached fixlist.txt to the same location as FRST

 fixlist.txt   4.71KB   718 downloads

Run FRST and press Fix
A fix log will be generated please post that

Reboot if the fix doesn't reboot it for you.  Run a new scan.  If we got lucky and it boots into regular mode then make sure Addition.txt is checked before hitting Scan in FRST.  Otherwise just post a new FRST scan.

 

You might have better luck downloading the Win 7 iso file and doing a repair install.

 

https://www.microsof...wnload/windows7

 

 

[RKinner]

2018-08-18 09:21 - 2018-08-18 09:21 - 000003544 ____N C:\bootsqm.dat
2018-08-18 09:16 - 2018-08-18 09:16 - 000000000 __SHD C:\found.000

 

 

This is an indication that check disk ran and recovered some files that were on a bad sector on the hard drive so your hard drive had a problem.  Unfortunately it appears that the sector that failed was critical to the boot process.

 

There are several Avast driver files missing (actually the files are there but have nothing in them) and some odd stuff from Avast's cleanup program.  We can try to remove them:

 

Download the attached fixlist.txt to the same location as FRST

 fixlist.txt   4.71KB   718 downloads

Run FRST and press Fix
A fix log will be generated please post that

Reboot if the fix doesn't reboot it for you.  Run a new scan.  If we got lucky and it boots into regular mode then make sure Addition.txt is checked before hitting Scan in FRST.  Otherwise just post a new FRST scan.

 

You might have better luck downloading the Win 7 iso file and doing a repair install.

 

https://www.microsof...wnload/windows7

 

 

[Geisthander]

Oh, but I was afraid it'd turn out to be something major like that.
 
However, as I type, it's at least booted itself back into normal mode so this has already done SO much.

 

Below are the Fixlog.txt as well as the new FRST.txt and Addition.txt

 

I'll be trying a repair installation next because I'm beyond paranoid that this is about to happen again, but I've been so paranoid that I'd accidentally erase my whole hard drive so that was going to be the thing that happened if all this stuff here didn't work.

 

But at the very least, I'm in a MUCH better place than I was when we started all this, so many thanks on that front.

Attached Files

•  Addition.txt   100.24KB   1548 downloads
•  FRST.txt   36.66KB   765 downloads
•  Fixlog.txt   5.88KB   705 downloads

[RKinner]

Looks like we got lucky that time.

 

Let's see how the hard drive looks:

 

Get the free version of Speccy:

http://www.filehippo...ownload_speccy/ 

(Look in the upper right for the Download
Latest Version button  - Do NOT press the large Start Download button on the upper left!)  
Download, Save and Install it.  Tell it you do not need CCLEANER.    Run Speccy.  When it finishes (the little icon in the bottom left will stop moving),
File, Save as Text File,  (to your desktop) note the name it gives. OK.  Open the file in notepad and delete the line that gives the serial number of your Operating System.  
(It will be near the top,  10-20  lines down.) Save the file.  Attach the file to your next post.  Attaching the log is the best option as it is too big for the forum.  Attaching is a multi step process.

First click on More Reply Options
Then scroll down to where you see
Choose File and click on it.  Point it at the file and hit Open.
Now click on Attach this file.

 

[Geisthander]

"Lucky" is the word for it, yeah.  Feeling like I dodged a bullet.

 

But here's the Speccy output.

Attached Files

•  SpeccyScan.txt   576.79KB   820 downloads

[RKinner]

The drive doesn't look that bad but it is an old Seagate and Seagates have a tendency to die without warning.  Back up anything you don't want to lose and do it now!

 

I would get another 3.5 " (desktop) SATA 3 drive of 2 TB and clone it before it fails.  I prefer Western Digital Blacks but they are about $115 vs $60 for the Blue.  Any drive will do as long as it's a 3.5 SATA 3 of 2 TB or more but avoid getting another Seagate.  If you get a drive larger than 2 TB you may run into the Win 7 max size limit and have to start partitioning it as two drives and it makes it harder to clone. 

 

I've had good luck with the Macrium Reflect 7 Free Edition software for cloning. 

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

 

With a desktop you can usually connect the second drive up in a temporary fashion.  Doesn't have to be physically installed, just borrow the cables from your DVD drive and make sure it doesn't short anything out.  After it's cloned you shut down and install the new drive in the place of the other (reconnect the DVD).  It should boot up normally.

 

Your current drive is only showing about 5% of free space.  You need to remove stuff to get it up to at least 11% free.  

Windows needs 11% free in order to do a defrag.  Without defragging things get really slow.

 

Uninstall old programs you don't use any more, empty your recycle bin, reduce the size for system restore copies.  Add a second drive and move stuff to it or get one of the bigger USB drives and move stuff to it.  Do whatever you have to to get enough free space.  If you are not sure what is using the hard drive:

 

I like WinDirStat:

 

https://windirstat.net/

 

The Download link is on:

 

https://sourceforge....mirror=versaweb

 

Download, Save, Right click and Run As Admin.  (I have multiple drives so I have to choose which drive when it first comes up) Wait until it finishes the scan then it will show you what folders are biggest.  You can open them to see subfolders.

 

You are showing errors from Checkpoint (Zone Alarm) and Avast so I would reinstall both.  I wouldn't let Avast do its cleanup again. 

[Geisthander]

Do they?  Yikes.  But that's good to know.  Will definitely see about replacing that and quick.  Already have most of the things that need backing up backed up elsewhere, so that much is taken care of.  Thanks for the heads-up there.

 

I'm making notes for all the rest because just cloning a drive sounds brilliant compared to the possibility of the whole thing just imploding.

 

I'll do all the space-clearing and deleting of extra junk as well as the reinstallations and give it a defrag to help speed everything up.

 

Many thanks for all your help.  With your help, I've got it back in basic working condition and I will be working on taking care of all the stuff you're mentioning here.

 

Are there any other things I should do besides what you've mentioned or, since my computer's back in something like functional shape, shall we call this case closed?

[RKinner]

Following procedure will check your hard drive and also check critical windows files:

1. Double-click My Computer, and then right-click the hard disk that you want to check. C:
2. Click Properties, and then click Tools.
3. Under Error-checking, click Check Now. A dialog box that shows the Check disk options is displayed,
4. Check both boxes and then click Start.
You will receive the following message:
The disk check could not be performed because the disk check utility needs exclusive access to some Windows files on the disk. These files can be accessed by restarting Windows. Do you want to schedule the disk check to occur the next time you restart the computer?
Click Yes to schedule the disk check, but don't restart yet.

Right click on (My) Computer and select Manage (Continue) Then the Event Viewer. Next select Windows Logs.  Right click on System and Clear Log, Clear. Repeat for Application. Reboot. The disk check will run and will probably take an hour or more to finish.


Start, All Programs, Accessories then right click on Command Prompt and Run as Administrator.  Then type (with an Enter after each line).

sfc /scannow

(SPACE after sfc.  This will check your critical system files. Does this finish without complaint?  IF it says it couldn't fix everything then:

Copy the next two lines:
findstr  /c:"[SR]"  \windows\logs\cbs\cbs.log  >  %UserProfile%\desktop\junk.txt
notepad %UserProfile%\desktop\junk.txt


Start, All Programs, Accessories, right click on Command Prompt and Run as Administrator, Continue.  Right click and Paste or Edit then Paste and the copied line should appear.
Hit Enter if notepad does not open.  Copy and paste the text from notepad into a reply.  Close notepad.  Close the Command Window.

Normally I run the following but VEW doesn't work with all languages.
1. Please download the Event Viewer Tool by Vino Rosso
http://images.malwar...om/vino/VEW.exe
and save it to your Desktop:
2. Right-click VEW.exe and Run AS Administrator
3. Under 'Select log to query', select:

* System
4. Under 'Select type to list', select:
* Error
* Warning


Then use the 'Number of events' as follows:


1. Click the radio button for 'Number of events'
Type 20 in the 1 to 20 box
Then click the Run button.
Notepad will open with the output log.


Please post the Output log in your next reply then repeat but select Application. (Each time you run VEW it overwrites the log so copy the first one to a Reply or rename it before running it a second time.)

As an alternative:

 

Full Event Log View

http://www.nirsoft.n...t_log_view.html

The download is near the bottom of the page.  Choose the one appropriate for your system.

Download FullEventLogView (32-bit version)
Download FullEventLogView (64-bit version)


Right click on the downloaded file and Extract All, Extract.  Doubleclick on FullEventLogView.exe

Once the program starts:  Options, Advanced Options and in the new window uncheck Informational verbose and Undefined.

Show only events from the last 1 Days

OK

Now Edit, Select All

File, Save Selected Items, to your desktop, call it events,  Save.

Close the program.  You should have a file called events.txt on your desktop.  Open it, Edit, Select All, Ctrl + c to copy and then move to a Reply and Ctrl +v to paste it into the reply.

I also like to run

System Update Readiness Tool for Windows 7

This link is for 64 bit:
https://www.microsof...s.aspx?id=20858

This one for 32 bit:
https://www.microsof...ls.aspx?id=3132


Once that runs then get

 KB3083710 and KB3102810 (if you don't already have them)

https://support.micr...n-us/kb/3083710

https://support.micr...n-us/kb/3102810

 

This will fix most problems with updates and also make Windows Updates work faster.



 

[Geisthander]

First off, many many thanks for all this excellent advice.

 

Second, however, I'm finding myself having to be away from my computer for a bit so further responses will come once I've returned.  I'm terribly sorry about that.

[RKinner]

No problem.  I don't keep track so just reply when you can.

[Geisthander]

Hi there!

 

I'm back and still on a funcitoning computer thanks to all your excellent advice.  Here's the rundown:

 

Disk check at startup went alright.  Took a bit, but everything's good.

 

Events were cleared.

 

No problems with scannow (hooray!)

 

And, sadly, I'm in Sweden, which VEW is not encoded for.  Bit frustrating, but not much to be done about it.

 

FELView worked okay (I think?) but the output is all in Swedish.  I'm attaching it just in case because a lot of the program errors are, I think(?) recognizable no matter the language? But maybe not, so I figure it's better if this is a short message than if it's a long one because there's a fairly large complement of errors that express themselves in Swedish.

 

Which, you know.  That's fun.

 

I'm also in the process of installing those two updates as I type this.

Attached Files

•  events.txt   1.18MB   1082 downloads

[RKinner]

Somehow you got the Information events along with the warnings and criticals so the file is very big.  Searching through for "warning" I don't see much to worry about.  If you don't use Windows Live I would uninstall it.  Microsoft doesn't support it any more. 

 

Is Windows Updating working OK now?

[Geisthander]

Oh!  Sorry about that.  

 

But good!  I don't use Windows Live, so goodbye to that one. And Windows Update is working again, so thank you on that!

 

Is there much else to get going on here, do you think?

[RKinner]

I think we are about done.

 

Time to clean up:
If we used FRST to clean your PC:

right click on FRST.exe or FRST64.exe (whichever you used) and rename it to uninstall.exe.  Then right click on uninstall.exe and Run as Admin.

 
If we installed Speccy it needs to be uninstalled.  Process Explorer, VEW, AdwCleaner, JRT  and their logs and Speccy's log can just be deleted.

Also make sure you have the latest versions of any adobe.com products you use like Shockwave, Flash or Acrobat.  Flash is now the most malware targeted program so it must be kept up to date.  Be careful with Adobe.  They are fond of offering optional downloads like yahoo or Ask toolbars or that worthless McAfee Security Scan.  Go slow and uncheck the optional stuff.

Whether you use adobe reader, acrobat or fox-it to read pdf files you need to disable Javascript in the program.  There is an exploit out there now that can use it to get on your PC.  For Adobe Reader:  Start, All Programs, Adobe Reader, Edit, Preferences, Click on Javascript in the left column and uncheck Enable Acrobat Javascript.  OK Close program.  It's the same for Foxit reader except you uncheck Enable Javascript Actions.


If you use Chrome/Firefox/Edge then get the Ublock Origin extension.  For IE go to adblockplus.org  and get the program.
If Chrome/Firefox is slow loading make sure it only has the current Java add-on.  Then download and run Speedy Fox.
http://www.crystalidea.com/speedyfox. Close Chrome/Firefox/Skpe. Hit Optimize.   You can run it any time that Chrome/Firefox seems slow starting..

If you use Facebook you need FB Purity: http://www.fbpurity.com/

To prevent a relatively new phishing attack:  In Firefox, type:

https://www.xn--80ak6aa92e.com/

If the URL changes to https://www.apple.cominstead of the correct value
type:
about:config

in the URL box and hit Enter.  You should get a new page of options (if you get a notice about voiding the warranty just cancel the warning).  In the Search box put in

puny

You should only get 2 options:
"network.IDN_show_punycode"
We want it to say True but by default it is False so double click on it to toggle from False to True.


 "network.standard-url.punycode-host" Leave this one at default of False.
Close and restart firefox.

If you are a Facebook user get the FB Purity extension for your browser:
http://www.fbpurity.com/
This will stop all of the suggested pages and ads so that Facebook loads much quicker.


Be warned:  If you use Limewire, utorrent or any of the other P2P programs you will probably be coming back to the Malware Removal forum.  If you must use P2P then submit any files you get to http://virustotal.combeforeyou open them.

Due to a recent rise in the number of Crytolocker infections I am now recommending you install:

CryptoPrevent
http://www.majorgeek...ptoprevent.html

The free version. When you install it the default is NONE which is kind of worthless so change it to Standard or default. If you have problems after installing CryptoPrevent you can just uninstall it.

If you have a router, log on to it today and change the default password!  If using a Wireless router you really should be using encryption on the link.  Use the strongest (newest) encryption method that your router and PC wireless adapter support especially if you own a business.  See http://www.king5.com...0637284.htmlandhttp://www.seattlepi...ted-1344185.php for why encryption is important.  If you don't know how, visit the router maker's website.  They all have detailed step by step instructions or a wizard you can download.

Special note on Java.  Old Java versions should be removed after first clearing the Java Cache by following the instructions in:
http://www.java.com/...lugin_cache.xml
Then remove the old versions by going to Control Panel, Programs and Features and Uninstall all Java programs which are not Java Version 7 update 25 or better.  These may call themselves: Java Runtime, Runtime Environment, Runtime, JRE, Java Virtual Machine, Virtual Machine, Java VM, JVM, VM, J2RE, J2SE.  Get the latest version from Java.com.  They will usually attempt to foist some garbage like the Ask toolbar, Yahoo toolbar or McAfee Security Scan on you as part of the download.  Just uncheck the garbage before the download (or install) starts.  If you use a 64-bit browser and want the 64-bit version of Java you need to use it to visit java.com.
Due to multiple security problems with Java we are now recommending that it not be installed unless you absolutely know you need it.  IF that is the case then go to Control Panel, Java, Security and slide it up to the highest level.  OK.


Recommended software: (I'm not saying you should download these just that if you have a need for a new program these are safe and work)  
Compression:  7-zip.  Avoid WinRar and WinZip as the free versions have adware.
Video Player:  VLC  Unlike Windows Medi Player it never seems to need extra files to work.
Photo organizer and editor:  Google's Picasa.  While it has been discontinued by Google you can still get it at:
http://techfilehippo...-free-download/
Office like free program:  Open Office: https://www.openoffice.org/download/
or
LibreOffice: https://www.libreoffice.org/
Free Anti-Virus:  Avast
Free Malware prevention:  MBAM: Free version at https://www.malwareb...m/mwb-download/
Can run with your anti-virus.
Paid Anti-Virus:  Kaspersky or BitDefender
Utilities:
Root Kit Detector:  MBAR: https://www.malwareb...om/antirootkit/
Process Explorer:  Show you what is running on the PC.  Like Task manager but better:  http://live.sysinter...com/procexp.exe
WhoCrashed: Why did your system crash?
http://www.resplendence.com/downloads
Then click on Download free home edition
where it says:
WhoCrashed 5.51
Comprehensible crash dump analysis tool
for Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP/2012/2008/2003 (x86 and x64)
System Health:
Speccy:  
http://www.filehippo.com/download_speccy (Look in the upper right for the Download
Latest Version button  - Do NOT press the large Start Download button on the upper left!)  Decline CCleaner if offered.  Pay attention to SMART info on your hard drives and to temps.  If in doubt about temps try:
SpeedFan:  Try speedfan
http://www.filehippo...nload_speedfan/
Download, save and Install it (Win 7 or Vista right click and Run As Admin.) then run it.
Download Flash and Video.  To save flash video.  Works with Firefox.  https://addons.mozil...lash-and-video/This allows you to start a recording and then switch to a different window and record another video.

With Win 10 only there is a new Game recorder program.  It's supposed to only work for games but it works nicely to record any video you watch.  Hit the Win key + Alt + r to start the recorder.  The first time it asks you if it is looking at a game.  Just tell it yes.  After that it starts recording whenever you bring it up.  Videos are saved to the Captures folder under Videos.  You can only record what you watch so limited to only one video at a time.  Best to go to full screen before starting the recorder.

Avoid:  
Advanced System Care
SuperAntiSpyware
HitmanPro
Spybot S&D
Any P2P software especially if it comes from Conduit.
Registry Cleaners
Driver updating software.
PC fixing or Speed up software.
Running more than one anti-virus.
Seagate hard drives.  If you have one it's going to fail on you so backup your data now!
 

[Geisthander]

Oh, boy, I've got some of those "to avoid" things in the system, so it's gonna be fun to get rid of those.

 

And it's nice to have a few bits of advice for what to get.  

 

Going to be ordering a Western Digital hard drive within the week, so thank you for the heads-up there as well.

 

I really do appreciate all the help you've been able to give me with this.