Computer Suddenly Stopped Booting up...

Hi there,

Recently, my computer has been very strange... I have been having unwitnessed BSODs (showing up in the reliability monitor), lots of hardware errors in the reliability monitor and multiple programs stopping working. The troubleshooting steps I took to try to solve these issues were: updating all drivers, testing ram with memtest86+ (8 passes OK), testing the hard drive with Sea Tools (all ok) and refreshing windows 10.

A couple of days ago, I experienced my start menu, Cortana all ‘apps’ etc. not working. So, I logged off, only to find a black screen with a curser! The only way to turn off was to do a hard shut down. After turning back on again, I got the usual windows start up screen and normal ‘AVG watchdog starting up’ text (see attachment). However, my computer freezes at this stage. AVG stops at ‘…finished’ and the computer freezes!

After trying to boot into safe mode, I simply get the black screen and curser again.

Luckily, I have all files backed up and other computers to use, but I am really concerned about the root cause of my problems as I have had similar errors in previous installs of windows.

Would these problems be caused by hardware? I am happy to clean install if necessary… but I would like to find out the causes of my problems first.

Thank you very much for your help. :)

Mentioning most of the event related to AVG, what about if we suspect that AVG as a root cause?

Hi there,

That would seem very logical as I have probably had AVG on all my other installations in the past.

Is there any way that I could uninstall AVG when the computer won't boot to the desktop (e.g. can I do it via the command line?). If not, what would you suggest I do next?

Many thanks for your prompt response!

soopg said:

Hi there,

That would seem very logical as I have probably had AVG on all my other installations in the past.

Is there any way that I could uninstall AVG when the computer won't boot to the desktop (e.g. can I do it via the command line?). If not, what would you suggest I do next?

Many thanks for your prompt response!

Do you have any version of Windows installation disk from 7 to 10? If you did, boot the disk, when the first prompt to choose language & keyboard layout press Shift + F10, it'll bring up a Command Prompt, just type in -> notepad <- hit Enter.

Browse to open file, navigate to C:\Program Files and/or C:\Program Files (x86), find a folder related to AVG, rename or move the folder(s), exit Notepad, exit CMD, quit the setup and boot normally.

There might be some error upon boot but hopefully you can get to the desktop. Then, use AVG Remover tool for thorough cleanup. Don't forget to delete the folder(s) that renamed earlier.

Hi there,

Thank you both for your quick responses.

However, I cannot boot into safe mode, as I stated in my original post:

soopg said:

After trying to boot into safe mode, I simply get a black screen and curser.

I tried to uninstall AVG via the command line, but I could not work out how to do this after many attempts. So, I thought I could boot from a linux live cd and delete the AVG files from there.

However, after trying multiple distros and disks, all of them do not boot up, they simply hang on the start up screen.

Therefore, can I conclude that there is something up with my hardware?

Thanks again.

Hi again!

I was being very dense about getting rid of AVG... I have now managed to rename the folder in program files.

However, now when the computer boots, instead of the AVG message freezing, I now get the Windows startup screen continuously loading!

Sorry about the quick succession of posts!

Thanks. :)

Can you do a chkdsk c: /f somehow (replace c with relevant letter).

Hi there,

I will run check disk tomorrow in WinRE.

Thanks for everyone's help!