Weirdest BSOD I've ever encountered after AVG scan!

[FrankLepore]

This is the weirdest issue I've ever experienced, and I've been building and troubleshooting my own PCs for like 20 years.

Last night I was running an AVG Free Deep Scan. When I got to about 30%, my computer blue screened and restarted. Upon restarting, I got the following error message:

"Your PC/Device needs to be repaired.
The application or operating system couldn't be loaded because a required file is missing or contains errors.

File: \Windows\system32\winload.efi
Error code: 0xc0000225"

When I restarted, I got a similar, but different message:

"A required device isn't connected or can't be accessed.
Error code: 0xc000000e"

Every time I restarted, I got the same message.

HOWEVER, when I shut down the computer completely, and started it from a powered down state, it WOULD boot up. Then, this morning, I went to wake up my computer from hibernate, and it was off. I tried turning it on, and once again, it wouldn't boot into Windows. It would boot me into a screen asking which keyboard I wanted to use, then told me I needed to repair. Of course, like every experience I've ever had, none of the options in the Windows Recovery features had any effect.

I assumed something was wonky with my UEFI partition, so I tried everything I could to straighten it out, including the following:

chkdsk /f
bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd
bootrec.exe /fixmbr
bootrec.exe /fixboot
DISM /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

A couple of these got some weird results. I spent an hour this morning trying to boot, and nothing worked, until I tried the following series of commands:

diskpart
list disk
select disk [N]
list vol
select vol [N]
assign letter=N:
exit
N:
bcdboot c:\windows /s N: /f UEFI

This seemed to work, and we were able to boot up. I thought everything was fine after this, but I still wanted to make sure, so I ran another deep scan on all three of my drives. It took about two hours, it found nothing, but it did say "we were unable to scan some files." Wasn't thrilled about that, so I decided to scan each drive individually, starting with C, which is the OS boot drive. A couple minutes into scanning C, and I get the blue screen again.

This time when it reboots, it goes straight into BIOS and doesn't even SEE my boot drive (Crucial - T700 2TB NVMe). It just doesn't exist. So I plug in a USB drive with Windows Installation Media on it and check DISKPART again. Just like the BIOS, my M.2 doesn't even show up.

I once again turn off the computer completely, wait a couple seconds, then boot up again. It boots into Windows completely fine.

I have no idea what's causing the PC to crash when scanning with AVG, or why the drive is either unable to boot or completely invisible afterward until I perform a full power off.

Has anyone heard of this before? Really appreciate any help or insight!

My build is as follows:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
Motherboard: ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR X670E HERO (WiFi 6E) Socket AM5 (LGA 1718)
Ram: 2x G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB Series (Intel XMP) 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin SDRAM DDR5 6000 CL30-40-40-96 (F5-6000J3040F16GA2-TZ5RS)
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4090 GAMING OC 24G (GV-N4090GAMING OC-24GD)
NVMe SSD (Primary): Crucial - T700 2TB Internal SSD PCIe Gen 5x4 NVMe
NVMe SSD (Storage): WD - BLACK SN850X 4TB Internal SSD PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe
Extra HDD: Seagate BarraCuda Pro 6TB 7200 RPM 256MB Cache (ST6000DM004)

[Shimejii]

Yeah uninstall AVG you do not need a program like that at all. Its a useless program that causes many more issues then it would ever resolve. 

 

This is a common issue with any "Anti-Virus" program that have become more akin to virus's and scams then they are beneficial. Windows Defender will do pretty much everything you need it to, as well as an ad block program on the browser.  Other then that you do not need anti-virus programs, you dont need anything else. If you want Malwarebytes just cause be my guest since it does not cause issues for the most part, but AVG and almost all the other ones are not to be used or trusted. This isnt 2010 anymore where every site was a risk to see, most sites are fine. With ad-block you virtually have nothing to worry about clicking wise, and unless you are Torrenting stuff you have 0 risk factors.

 

Ive seen these Anti-Virus programs brick operating systems, this was very common from 2015-2018 where someone would bring their laptop in because their OS got bricked during a "virus scan". Desktops are a bit harder to bring in so we didnt get those in but a few calls to confirm that either the bootloader got corrupted after the scan, or certain files get deleted and windows freaks out trying to roll back, causing a conflict with the anti-virus and thus bricked windows.

[FrankLepore]

Update: When I tried to run an Extended Device Self-Test in the Crucial Storage Executive app in Windows, I walked away when the test was at about 20%. When I checked on the computer about an hour later, it was in the BIOS and had no boot drive listed.

 

Starting to wonder if the Crucial - T700 is bad, even though it's less than 2 months old.

[FrankLepore]

36 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

Yeah uninstall AVG you do not need a program like that at all. Its a useless program that causes many more issues then it would ever resolve. 

 

This is a common issue with any "Anti-Virus" program that have become more akin to virus's and scams then they are beneficial. Windows Defender will do pretty much everything you need it to, as well as an ad block program on the browser.  Other then that you do not need anti-virus programs, you dont need anything else. If you want Malwarebytes just cause be my guest since it does not cause issues for the most part, but AVG and almost all the other ones are not to be used or trusted. This isnt 2010 anymore where every site was a risk to see, most sites are fine. With ad-block you virtually have nothing to worry about clicking wise, and unless you are Torrenting stuff you have 0 risk factors.

 

Ive seen these Anti-Virus programs brick operating systems, this was very common from 2015-2018 where someone would bring their laptop in because their OS got bricked during a "virus scan". Desktops are a bit harder to bring in so we didnt get those in but a few calls to confirm that either the bootloader got corrupted after the scan, or certain files get deleted and windows freaks out trying to roll back, causing a conflict with the anti-virus and thus bricked windows.

While I think there is some truth to this, I had my Google account hacked last year from something that ended up on my machine. Windows Defender (Windows Security?) did not catch this, but AVG did after I followed up and installed it.

 

That, combined with the restart and missing boot drive during a Crucial Storage Executive Extended Device Self-Test as well is leading me to believe the drive might be wonky.

[FrankLepore]

Looking a little deeper, I downloaded CrystalDiskInfo to test the drive. Immediately upon opening the app, I see that it's in the red at 72 degrees C. And that's WITH the huge factory heat sink on it!

 

According to the internet:

 

"The Crucial T700 Gen 5 SSD encounters heat management issues, particularly regarding the controller and NAND. When the temperature reaches 90 degrees Celsius, the SSD performs a thermal shutdown, requiring a power cycle refresh to restore functionality (your data remains intact)."

 

The power cycling comment makes total sense, and seems in line with what's happening: why a restart doesn't fix it, but a full shut down and turn on does. I imagine the AVG scan and the Self Test were bumping up the temp.

 

Not sure what to do though, since these are temps with a pretty large heat sink on the drive.