Boot Up Problem with Win ME (AV Related?)

B

Ben Alias

I have a friend who has an older computer, running Win ME. He has
left town to go to Chicago, but in the mean time a 21-year-old intern
has come to live at his place and needs to use his computer.

His computer had an old version of Norton AV on it, which was not
updated since 2004. So I advised the intern, Ellen, to remove Norton
and install AVG instead. She does this.

Unfortunately, she is not a computer-savvy person, and previously had
only used Macs and XP machines. So, sometime after installing AVG and
perhaps after installing Firefox, she starts getting these error
messages, which she basically ignores. One of these messages said
something about installing a disk in drive A:, i.e., the emergency
boot disk.

She did not have one and did not know what they meant, so just ignored
the message.

By the time I got there with my own boot disk, the machine just would
not boot up. You'd get this start up screen with the various choices,
and it would be defaulting to Safe Mode. But you'd try to boot into
Safe Mode, and it would just run through the initial splash screen
cycle, and put you back to the same menu, trying to boot into Safe
Mode.

We tried the boot disk, did scandisk and scanreg, but neither worked.

The "Help" file on the boot disk says something about an antivirus
program causing failure to boot, but does not say how to fix this.

Oh, we did run the utility that checks out file fragments or memory
fragments or whatever and converts them into a FILE0001.CHK type file.
That file had several references to AVG7, so it seems likely that the
antivirus had something to do with the problem.

Can anyone clue me in to the cause of the problem? And how to go
about fixing it? Or do I just need to take the computer in to a
repair shop?

C'ya,

Ben
 
B

Ben Myers

"Ben Alias" <benalias@hotmail.invalid> wrote in message news:p53je3dprmiptnhibn36ujr12urmb66u2g@4ax.com...
> I have a friend who has an older computer, running Win ME. He has
> left town to go to Chicago, but in the mean time a 21-year-old intern
> has come to live at his place and needs to use his computer.
> His computer had an old version of Norton AV on it, which was not
> updated since 2004. So I advised the intern, Ellen, to remove Norton
> and install AVG instead. She does this.
> Unfortunately, she is not a computer-savvy person, and previously had
> only used Macs and XP machines. So, sometime after installing AVG and
> perhaps after installing Firefox, she starts getting these error
> messages, which she basically ignores. One of these messages said
> something about installing a disk in drive A:, i.e., the emergency
> boot disk.
> She did not have one and did not know what they meant, so just ignored
> the message.
> By the time I got there with my own boot disk, the machine just would
> not boot up. You'd get this start up screen with the various choices,
> and it would be defaulting to Safe Mode. But you'd try to boot into
> Safe Mode, and it would just run through the initial splash screen
> cycle, and put you back to the same menu, trying to boot into Safe
> Mode.
> We tried the boot disk, did scandisk and scanreg, but neither worked.
> The "Help" file on the boot disk says something about an antivirus
> program causing failure to boot, but does not say how to fix this.
> Oh, we did run the utility that checks out file fragments or memory
> fragments or whatever and converts them into a FILE0001.CHK type file.
> That file had several references to AVG7, so it seems likely that the
> antivirus had something to do with the problem.
> Can anyone clue me in to the cause of the problem? And how to go
> about fixing it? Or do I just need to take the computer in to a
> repair shop?


Try restoring a previous registry.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221512

Ben
 
B

Ben Alias

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 04:34:12 -0400, "Ben Myers"
<benjmyers@mindR-e-m-o-v-Espring.com> wrote:

>"Ben Alias" <benalias@hotmail.invalid> wrote in message news:p53je3dprmiptnhibn36ujr12urmb66u2g@4ax.com...


>> We tried the boot disk, did scandisk and scanreg, but neither worked.



>Try restoring a previous registry.
>
>http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221512
>
>Ben


We did try doing this with scanreg, but will try again.

Thanks for the link.

C'ya,

Ben
 
H

Heirloom

Norton AV is one of the worst for Me OS....it is bloatware and highly
invasive. The removal is difficult, at best. After removal from my Me
machine, there were still a large amount of folders and files and almost 200
registry entries that remained. If your intern simply used Add/Remove or
the Norton uninstaller without killing ALL of Norton's processes, the
uninstall would be incomplete. I imagine she still has Live Update and
other facets of the app still intact and running. This is, most likely,
causing a conflict with AVG.

Symantec has a removal program that you can download from their site, this
MAY (heavy on the 'MAY'), remove enough of the detritus left behind to put
you back in order. There used to be some instruction on how to manually
remove the program, as well. I would advise removing AVG before attempting
this, simply to prevent further conflict and then re-install AVG after the
cleaning. Keep in mind that the removal app from Symantec may not recognize
the AV being there since some of it has been removed....that may require
re-installing Norton in order for the uninstall app to work.

I doubt restoring your Reg to an earlier date will do anything to
help....since part of the app has been removed.
Heirloom, old and nothing Norton (Symantec) on
my machines

"Ben Alias" <benalias@hotmail.invalid> wrote in message
news:0s6le31i0et5ni0023pbq8ujpmjfh520i5@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 04:34:12 -0400, "Ben Myers"
> <benjmyers@mindR-e-m-o-v-Espring.com> wrote:
>
>>"Ben Alias" <benalias@hotmail.invalid> wrote in message
>>news:p53je3dprmiptnhibn36ujr12urmb66u2g@4ax.com...

>
>>> We tried the boot disk, did scandisk and scanreg, but neither worked.

>
>
>>Try restoring a previous registry.
>>
>>http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221512
>>
>>Ben

>
> We did try doing this with scanreg, but will try again.
>
> Thanks for the link.
>
> C'ya,
>
> Ben
>
>
 
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