AMD seems to have confirmed that a bug within the latest version of the Radeon drivers can be harmful to your PC and mess up the Windows OS.
AMD's Radeon Driver Bug Confirmed To Mess Up Windows OS, Working On Fix ASAP
Last month, we pointed out that some users were experiencing various boot issues and corruption within Windows OS after installing the latest Radeon drivers. While there were various reports over at hardware forums and AMD's own subreddit, AMD didn't respond to them immediately, however, almost two weeks later, the company has more or less confirmed that these issues are the result of a bug that has been discovered within the Radeon driver suite.
In a statement to Brad Chacos of PCWorld who also experienced a similar issue with his own setup, an AMD spokesperson confirmed that the issue, which occurs in an extremely small number of PC update instances, can cause corruption to the Windows OS. The problem seems to stem from the "Factory Reset" option which needs to be unchecked prior to the installation of the new driver. This is not the case with the new driver as the option is checked from the start when an update is being applied simultaneously in the background, causing the Windows OS to reboot in its default factory state and even wiping out crucial user data.
The following is the full statement provided to PCWorld:
“We have reproduced an issue that can occur in an extremely small number of instances if a PC update occurs during the installation of AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition, and we are actively investigating.
We recommend users ensure all system updates are applied or paused before installing the driver, and that the “Factory Reset” option is unchecked during the AMD driver installation process. We are committed to resolve issues as quickly as possible and strongly encourage users to submit issues with AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition via the Bug Report Tool.”
It's definitely a technical flaw that has prompted users to lose their Windows OS to a buggy driver but AMD has assured that they are working on a fix. For now, we can only ask users to go by AMD's own method which is to uncheck the "Factory Reset" option and also use DDU to uninstall drivers.
Users who rely on Windows update packages for their graphics drivers should know that this is an automated procedure and if the option is checked on those, that could also lead to a corrupt OS install. The best way, once again, is to enable the "Prevent downloads of drivers from Windows Update" option within DDU and manually install them. Users can also check if a Windows update is pending and pause that manually. This will ensure that your copy of drivers is freshly installed and your OS remains unaffected by the bug.
News Source: VideoCardz
