problems with Avira AV free version

Hi! I recently posted that Avira AV was giving me the following warning in the master boot sectors HD 1,2,3,&4:

[warning] system error [21]: the device is not ready.

I was informed that Avira does this and it is nothing to worry about.

Then, soon after, I noticed that my Windows Security Center was warning me in the notification area that I had no av working yet in the Avira control center, it said that the antivirus guard was activated.

I uninstalled the Avira AV and then reinstalled it. The first scan was good with nothing detected. The master boot sector system errors mentioned above did not turn up on the first scan after the reinstallation of Avira.

Anybody got any ideas or suggestions??

Bye,
rnfstwill

Edited by garmanma, 27 March 2009 - 05:20 PM.
moved to appropriate forum

Hi rnfstwill,
The following always appear in my scan logs--not sure what it means but I've never had any problems that trace back to it.

Starting master boot sector scan:
Master boot sector HD0
[INFO] No virus was found!
Master boot sector HD1
[INFO] No virus was found!
Master boot sector HD2
[INFO] No virus was found!
Master boot sector HD3
[INFO] No virus was found!
Master boot sector HD4
[INFO] No virus was found!
[WARNING] System error [21]: The device is not ready.

Not sure why yours went away after a reinstall, but you might look around the AntiVir forums or perhaps ask about it there.

I do occasionally get warnings from Windows Security Center just like you describe. When that happens it is usually because AntiVir is doing an automatic update--which includes upgrades to program components at times. In order to save the changes to the program's files, the Guard gets shut down temporarily. The AntiVir icon in the system tray will show a closed umbrella when it is shut down. When the umbrella opens, the Guard is both active and running.

It's possible the umbrella had reopened before you got into the AntiVir program interface to check the guard's status. If it happens again, give it a few seconds and keep an eye on the umbrella. If it stays shut down, then post about it in the AnitVir forums so they can determine if it is a bug and how to fix it.
http://forum.avira.com/wbb/index.php?langid=1

And post back here too as we like to keep up with such things.

Dear Papakid,

Thanks much for the tips. I'm slow to get back to your message as I've been bogged down with the flu (the other virus).

I'll post on the Avira forum ASAP and get back to you. Also I appreciate the tips about the umbrella.

My scans before my uninstall and reinstall only read system error [21] for master boot sectors HD1, HD2, HD3, and HD4 and NOT for HD0. Dunno why but I'll ask at Avira Forum. I see yours only read system error [21] for HD4.

Please be patient with me as I'm new to PC and pathetically slow and ignorant!

Bye,
rnfstwill

Thanks for posting back and I'm sorry to hear you've been under the weather--get well soon.

Also, I'm pathetically slow as well so don't worry about that. Or about being ignorant as forums like this are here to rectify that.

Last night I looked over your previous thread and then went kooking around the Avira forums on my own. There is no one thread where the answer to the question is crystal clear, but it seems apparent that any drive that comes up with the System error [21] means the drive is a card reader with no card inserted. A card reader would be one of those memory devices for, say, a digital camera. On my system that would explain the one drive throwing an error as I have a printer that has a card reader that shows up as another drive in My Computer. I can only assume that inserting a card into the reader would give it a status of "ready" so that I wouldn't get that error.

So that error status changing after you reinstalled AntiVir means there probably was some kind of problem with the installation and you did the right thing to fix it. Unless you had four empty card readers when you did that first scan and then had cards inserted when you did the scan where there were no errors, which doesn't sound likely to me.

Hope this helps and that AntiVir is running with no problems now. Let us know.