>Since I was fortunate enough to get it to (miraculously) boot this
>morning, I have to back-up the entire hard drive.  I was under the
>apparently erroneous impression that I could use CD's to do this. >>


You were correct the first time. There's no reason why you shouldn't use
CD's to copy files, data, etc.

You wouldn't be able to "clone" (ie make an image) of the whole operating
system on CD's but there'd be no point in doing so if the system is hosed
anyway.  Just copy your data files,  addresses, and whatever onto CD's.
Don't forget email letters and browser bookmarks.

<<The remaining issue is in regards to Norton, i.e., Symantec.>>

Now you really do have quite a serious problem.  Nortons is losing its
faithful clients in droves, for that very reason.  I just spent most of
yesterday fixing a computer which had been hosed by Norton's inability to
uninstall properly.  You certainly aren't alone there---join the mob!

I fear that's probably the root cause of all your problems---assuming of
course that you've got rid of the virus in the first place.

What happens is that a part of Nortons stays running in protected memory,
so that when the uninstall gets to that point, it either gets stuck, or
starts looping. That's because XP won't allow the deletion of running
system files. Which is great if a virus is trying to attack it, but not so
great if it's you that's the attacker, so to speak.

I found that by going into Safe Mode, running Msconfig, and unchecking
everything in the Startup tab, I was able to reboot into normal mode
sufficiently to be able to disable Nortons from starting, after which the
uninstall of Nortons was able to run to completion.  The important factor
is to stop all programs running at startup (including Nortons itself if you
can).

As everybody by now knows, that won't remove Nortons completely from your
computer, but will at least render it inoperative.  To remove it
completely, you have to download the free removal tool from their Website.

With luck and perseverance, you shouldn't have to reinstall XP.  Once
you've removed Nortons, you should be fine.

<<Upon the repair installation, I would then need to reinstall the
information from the back-up, not that I know how to do that as well.>>

Not necessary.  Removal of Nortons is the key to success, though whether
the method I've outlined here will work for you depends on many factors.

Many readers who've had Nortons troubles have found it easiest in the end
to reformat their hard drives and reinstall XP afresh.  This is often the
best solution.  If your hard drive is properly partitioned, you'd only need
to reformat your C-Drive, on which you should not be keeping any data or
program files anyway, so may be no need to backup much.  This will
effectively eliminate Nortons, as most of its troubles lie in the system
files and registry entries which would all be removed on reformatting the
C-Drive.

Stick to playing with mortars in future---they're a lot less troublesome
than Nortons!

Don Penlington




 From the Beach at Surfers Paradise in sunny Queensland.
Computer tutorials, local scenery,  and other things at my website:
http://users.tpg.com.au/deepend/index1.html

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