J
James Pirie
Dear all,
My computer, a Packard Bell, came pre loaded with Windows XP and Norton
Antivirus. Neither of these products has a CD or DVD master disc as
they are also pre loaded on the HDD. This is not a situation I enjoy
but is becoming the norm these days.
Story begins when Norton gets to the end of it's trial period and begins
to nag for registration. I don't want to register this bloatware so I
attempt to remove it. Hmmmmm. No entry in the Add remove software CP so
I proceed to remove the thing manually. Sadly I could not use the
Symantec web resources as something (I suspect Norton) was blocking web
pages and also SMTP?? so I tried to do this manually. I removed all
traces of Norton from the HDD and also the registry start up folders.
This seemed to stop the popups but not the web problems. Before I moved
on to other areas I scanned through the registry and deleted all
references to "symantec" This seems to have killed the HDD in as much
as it fails to boot into windows now. I relaise this is a serious
situation and wondered if you had any helpful suggestions to somehow
recover the drive and it's previous contents (Some training coursework
and music files) I have attempted to add a new windows installation to
dual boot so that I could perhaps repair the old one but windows setup
only gets as far as copying the files to the new folder and then, on
reboot, it does no more. I suspect that the boot block/sector has
become damaged but there starts the limits of my knowledge. The HDD is
formatted as NTFS and, using recovery console, I was able to ascertain
that all the information on the drive is still intact. I also see that
there is a small OS2 inactive partition on the HDD which, presumably,
holds the installation files for windows and Norton. We do not have a
recovery disc but have contacted the vendor and they will be sending one
out. Sadly I don't think it will help given the problem with the drive
booting.
Are you able to offer anay help. This is a registered copy of XP home
with case sticker but no disc. Should we wait and try the recovery disc
or is there another way to repair the disc.
Yours hopefully,
James K. Pirie
My computer, a Packard Bell, came pre loaded with Windows XP and Norton
Antivirus. Neither of these products has a CD or DVD master disc as
they are also pre loaded on the HDD. This is not a situation I enjoy
but is becoming the norm these days.
Story begins when Norton gets to the end of it's trial period and begins
to nag for registration. I don't want to register this bloatware so I
attempt to remove it. Hmmmmm. No entry in the Add remove software CP so
I proceed to remove the thing manually. Sadly I could not use the
Symantec web resources as something (I suspect Norton) was blocking web
pages and also SMTP?? so I tried to do this manually. I removed all
traces of Norton from the HDD and also the registry start up folders.
This seemed to stop the popups but not the web problems. Before I moved
on to other areas I scanned through the registry and deleted all
references to "symantec" This seems to have killed the HDD in as much
as it fails to boot into windows now. I relaise this is a serious
situation and wondered if you had any helpful suggestions to somehow
recover the drive and it's previous contents (Some training coursework
and music files) I have attempted to add a new windows installation to
dual boot so that I could perhaps repair the old one but windows setup
only gets as far as copying the files to the new folder and then, on
reboot, it does no more. I suspect that the boot block/sector has
become damaged but there starts the limits of my knowledge. The HDD is
formatted as NTFS and, using recovery console, I was able to ascertain
that all the information on the drive is still intact. I also see that
there is a small OS2 inactive partition on the HDD which, presumably,
holds the installation files for windows and Norton. We do not have a
recovery disc but have contacted the vendor and they will be sending one
out. Sadly I don't think it will help given the problem with the drive
booting.
Are you able to offer anay help. This is a registered copy of XP home
with case sticker but no disc. Should we wait and try the recovery disc
or is there another way to repair the disc.
Yours hopefully,
James K. Pirie
