ARGGG! Can boot with Norton SystemWorks CD, but can't do anything to NTFS C drive.

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Symantec (norton) SystemWorks 2003
My system: XP pro., NTFS HD, Dell Dimension 8300 / 3.0Ghz / 800 Mhz fsb
/ yadda...


Purportedly, the norton AV cd and systemworks cd can be used to boot
from to scan a system for viruses when the virus has clobbered the OS,
or has crippled the installed NAV on the HD.

But it doesn't ..... work.

I can place the distribution CD and boot from it. It'll come up and ask
for a key press to start the virus scan. And the scan will start.

All it does is scan the cd itself as A:, and nothing I can do will let
it see the C: harddrive.

Is this because when it boots it becomes a dos-(or win98???---I thought
I saw that somewhere) version of norton and hence cannot peer into NTFS
partitions?

Shouldn't symantec have another way around that?

I can't find a single thing about it in their manuals, or online.

THANKS!!!!!!

 

[peter]

http://www.hellasystems.de/ftp/Utilities/System/ReadNtfs/
Seeing as you have acces to a computer I have included a site for "readntfs"
that
will create a bootable floppy that can see/read/etc NTFS drives.If you add
the
virus scanner to the floppy you might be able to scan.
Or just move your work files off that virus infected drive and format that
little sucker out of existance and do a cleean reinstall
peter

 

[Alex Nichol]

All it does is scan the cd itself as A:, and nothing I can do will let
it see the C: harddrive.

Is this because when it boots it becomes a dos-(or win98???---I thought
I saw that somewhere) version of norton and hence cannot peer into NTFS
partitions?
Probably.

Shouldn't symantec have another way around that?

One can almost trust them not to get things right - or to give a wrong
impression of what they are capable of.

 

[Visitor]

That is a very common problem.

Microsoft doesn't make freely available any utilities to read & write NTFS.
They don't even make the specs freely available, like they used to for FAT.
(Now they try to charge for FAT specs...)

Instead, places like Symantec etc. tell you that you have to purchase a
commercial third party driver to allow DOS (or Win9x) to access the ntfs
drives.

Basically, Microsoft deliberately set up a situation where if something
happens to NTFS, there's a good chance of you getting screwed completely.
It's just a way of keeping them in control. They could have easily provided
a driver for DOS or Win98 for emergencies, but they don't.

Some "Live CD" linux Distros, like Knoppix, can *read* ntfs, but not write.
Future versions might write, but I'm not sure of the reliability. (Knoppix,
and others, can be run entirely from the cd, never writing to any hard
drive. Although they'll ask you if you want to write to fat32 to store your
settings, you can say no. A few wont even ask. They'll just do it.)

 

[CS]

On Sun, 02 May 2004 03:51:19 GMT, "Thomas G. Marshall"

One of the disadvantages of using NTFS. Your Norton SystemWorks CD
can not "see" the hard drive. More crapware from Symantec. Sorry, I
also have a copy of it. (my last ever)

There are several free NTFS readers that can be downloaded, but in
your situation won't do you any good unless you can write to the drive
from the CD. The only one that I know of that will read and write
will cost you an arm and a leg from www.wininternals.com.