Antivirus Program Corrupted My Hard Drive

[herme3]

I downloaded the eTrust EZ Antivirus from http://www.my-etrust.com/Microsoft/vista/default.aspx. It is supposed to be compatible with Windows Vista BETA, but it just corrupted my hard drive today. I downloaded it about a week ago, and the real-time scan seems to work fine.

 

However, I ran a full scan today and a blue screen with an error message appeared right after the scan was complete. A few seconds later, my computer automatically restarted. About a minute after the desktop finished loading, the computer went back to the blue screen and restarted again. This just kept repeating itself. I tried using system restore, but it did not fix the problem.

 

Next, I tried using Windows to check the hard drive for errors. It found a large list of errors, and automatically fixed all of them. Now, my computer seems to be working fine. Has anybody else had this problem? The Antivirus program was made by Computer Associates, which is a large security company. I can't believe they would release an Antivirus program without testing it first.

 

I don't think my computer could have already had a virus when I ran the scan. I had completely reformatted my hard drive when installing Vista last week, and I haven't downloaded very many programs since then. Does anyone know what might have caused the problem?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I suggest you complain to the antivirus makers so they can address the problem.

[Gaz]

You're running a BETA os, from microsoft no less. What were you expecting?

[reor]

I just talked my father out of trying some free betas like Vista and Office 7 with the argument: "Why do you think is Micro$oft giving it away for free?" Well, it saves them money. Dare imagine a beta of Word or Outlook!

[herme3]

Windows Vista BETA is actually very stable. It was difficult to install, and it is also to difficult to find all the drivers I need, but the operating system itself works great. The only problem I'm really having is that the screen resolution doesn't fit right on my widescreen monitor. I'm sure this will be easy to fix once Vista is for sale and more drivers are available.

 

The only time I had any serious errors with Vista was when I ran a virus scan. It seems obvious that the problem was caused by the virus scanner, not Vista.

[wh666-666]

Oh i beg to differ, and differ i shall. Microsoft Vista beta 1/2 is infamous for blue screening and doing physical memory dumps and is extremely unstable. Their a corporation and as such havnt done any major development work since 1995 or 2000.

 

Thats the whole point of corportaions and how they exercise so much power through dominance and what they like to call "compliance" when Windows/vista and all of its components/software are the most un-compliant in the industry. Take Internet explorer for example, its so un-compliant that its a known fact web developers have to design and code sites for compliance for all browsers, then code them for IE as well so i laugh at a claim that you can say a beta is stable, and yes im p*ssing my pants you think a microsoft beta is stable. Thats the most hilarious thing ive heard this month. (Yes i have tested all released betas by the way).

 

And actually thats the only thing i can say positive about vista, the install process is the easiest yet with the best graphics yet. Drivers wont be available all that easily and bugs wont be ironed out in the first release. Use XP as an example, the first release was dreadful, so much people switched back to Win2000 (XP in comparison is the same platform just a more graphical; GUI with hotfixes and patches everywhere) in disgust till they fixed a few problems with sp2 and only now can you get a wide range of support for XP which wasnt as good last year.

 

In short, why be a complete muppet and upgrade to Vista, even when properly released? Its such a bogged down operating system they've been debating splitting it in to six different operating systems although since vista is so massively delayed this could change.

 

Trust me, it isnt the virus scanner, its either a virus, faulty hardware or conflicting software you havnt considered or Vista but i would put my money on Vista for sure.

[wh666-666]

And im not blasting microsoft, all of the above is personal comments about a real problem. Im not a microsoft hater its just microsoft didnt invent the windows concept even though they like to think so and ripped off a certain company. And with all of this dominance instead of a monopolistic greed id actually like to see the lisence money spent on developing a new OS not just repackaging a platform and reselling it as a new OS. People wouldnt have gripes with microsoft if they actually fixed their mistakes, anyone can make mistakes accidently but to make them on purpose again and again is just pure greed.

[ecoli]

@wh666 - I thoguht you said that you WEREN'T a microsoft hater.

[wh666-666]

Lol ecoli. Well maybe hate but thats a strong word. Ummm is disgruntled better!? Lol.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Please stay on topic.

[Pangloss]

Sorry you're having problems, Herme. Vista certainly does some interesting things with hardware, and it's likely that that's the source of your issues here.

 

I was speaking with a fellow professor the other day who described a Vista situation in which he put the system in Hibernation, removed the Vista-loaded HD from a system and replaced it with a WinXP HD, and when he booted it he saw a flash of the Vista startup screen followed by immediate and thorough corruption of all the data on his WinXP hard drive. Strange stories like that abound in Vista beta discussions these days.

 

This has been my experience as well, using brand-new, top-of-the-line "Vista Compatible" hardware (specifically a Dell XPS 600 with a Pentium EE 945, 2gb 667mhz RAM and ATI X1900 XT video). I've had trouble just getting the machine to *POST* after some dumps. POST! Show any kind of video at all. Once I had to actually unplug the machine to get it to work again. Truly bizarre.

 

I happen to like Vista and IE7 (reminds me more of KDE than OS-X, but maybe that's just me). But it's beta, and problems are likely to continue for a while yet. After all, if it were problem-free then it would have been released by now. (grin)

 

Good luck!

[wh666-666]

I am not deviating from the subject but if anybody is still unsure about what is causing the problem (of which i have assured people it is a beta of an operating system causing problems) feel free to message me and il describe it in simpler terms which i cannot do on this thread. (mainly because it gets deleted) Many thanks and i hope the thread starter can resolve this issue by using a fully working operating system and wish him the best of luck.