Computer won't restart after updating anti-virus

[roccenstein]

I use Avast and had been getting an error message for the last few days whenever it tried to update itself, so I decided to go to the Avast website and download the latest version directly.  It proceeded through the install and then said it needed to restart to complete it.  I did that, but when it tried to restart, I got the blue screen of death displaying the following message:

*** STOP: 0X0000005C (0X00003000, 0X00000001, 0X00000008, 0X00000000)

I've tried hitting the reset button, got the same message, tried doing a hard shutdown and letting it sit for a few minutes and restarted, got the same message.  Help!

[roccenstein]

Tried it again today, still no luck.  If it turns out my HD is wrecked, it's not a big deal, I've changed them before and all my important files are on two external HDs, but it would be nice if there was some way to fix this and avoid the hassle.

[Geek-9pm]

Most likely it is your hard drive again.
Good thing you have a backup of your important stuff. But here is what I would do if I were you. I'll go through my spare drives and see one of him that so may be suitable for a quick project.
Here's the plan. Wipe the drive was some kind of utility you can boot up off of the CD or a USB flash drive. Then format the drive and see if it done has a lot of bad stuff on it or if it looks pretty clean. Most often a really bad drive will cause the format program to crash.
Now the next step then is to install your Windows onto that hard drive. Don't worry about the activation. You will have 30 days to take care that. Next put on some of the essential programs you need and get connected to the Internet and put in one of your favorite antivirus tools.
Yeah, this economy and all-day project, but it will give you a definitive answer to your problem. If you really can get the thing up and running pretty clean on the spare drive, you can be pretty sure that it really was a problem with the hard drive.
But now things are going wrong you might be wondering if you have something wrong with your motherboard or your RAM chips or even your power supply.
Anyway, that's what I would do. Hopefully you have a spare computer you can use in the meantime to watch your favorite TV shows and movies.
Hope this helps. 

[roccenstein]

Just out of curiosity, I took out one of my RAM chips and restarted.  That did something, because then it took me to the 'launch repair mode' or 'launch windows normally' screen.  I selected repair, so we'll see what happens...

[roccenstein]

So it's back up and running and everything seems fine.  Weird.  Oh well, not going to look this gift horse in the mouth...

[Geek-9pm]

Just goes to show that failures come in many flavors.
Now is time to think about new RAM sticks. Just in case. 

[SuperDave]

You can run some tests on the harddrive and the Ram.

Run hard drive diagnostics: tacktech.com
Make sure, you select tool, which is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive.
Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy, or bootable CD.
If downloaded file is of .iso type, use ImgBurn: imgburn to burn .iso file to a CD (select "Write image file to disc" option), and make the CD bootable.
For Toshiba hard drives, see here:

Note : If you do not know how to set your computer to boot from CD follow the steps here
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That could be a problem with bad RAM. Please run this check just to eliminate that possibility.
Test your RAM here.