Boot Up Problem with Win ME (AV Related?)

[Guest 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

[Guest Ben Myers]

Re: Boot Up Problem with Win ME (AV Related?)

 

"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

[Guest Ben Alias]

Re: Boot Up Problem with Win ME (AV Related?)

 

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

[Guest Heirloom]

Re: Boot Up Problem with Win ME (AV Related?)

 

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

>

>