I set-up an XP workstation for our company with two 250GB SATA drives, with the OS residing on SATA0 and the data on SATA1. I installed Norton Corporate AV 10.2, as we have on all of our other PC's. Almost immediately the machine started going to a black screen after the XP logo at bootup and just sit there. After much troubleshooting, I got the OS back after executing a "fdisk /mbr" command via an old Windows 98 boot floppy. However, the same sympton came back at the next bootup. After some head scratching, it turned out that the Norton AV was the problem. After removing Norton, all was OK. To be sure, I re-installed Norton and the problem returned - removed it and all was well again. I then installed an older version of Norton Corporate and the machine works fine. Any thoughts or suggestions? I contacted Norton about this and as expected, they disavowed any responsibility for this mystery. Thanks.

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Why install Norton when there are so many better (and free) security apps out there?



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make windows xp behave

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Try contacting Symantec Tech support?


On Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 8:14 am, Jeff wrote:
>I set-up an XP workstation for our company with two 250GB SATA drives, with the OS
>residing on SATA0 and the data on SATA1. I installed Norton Corporate AV 10.2, as
>we have on all of our other PC's. Almost immediately the machine started going to
>a black screen after the XP logo at bootup and just sit there. After much troubleshooting,
>I got the OS back after executing a "fdisk /mbr" command via an old Windows 98 boot
>floppy. However, the same sympton came back at the next bootup. After some head
>scratching, it turned out that the Norton AV was the problem. After removing Norton,
>all was OK. To be sure, I re-installed Norton and the problem returned - removed
>it and all was well again. I then installed an older version of Norton Corporate
>and the machine works fine. Any thoughts or suggestions? I contacted Norton about
>this and as expected, they disavowed any responsibility for this mystery. Thanks.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Do you run any OTHER software that also does something to the master boot record 
or track 0?  If so, perhaps it's the confluence of the two.  For example:  Norton 
(ironic, eh?) Goback, Rollback RX, Truecrypt (if you're doing full disk encyption), 
and Adobe Photoshop (thanks to the Macromedia Safecast activation scheme, which writes 
data to the boot track), do not play well with other software that messes with track 
0.







On Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 8:14 am, Jeff wrote:

>I set-up an XP workstation for our company with two 250GB SATA drives, with the 
OS 

>residing on SATA0 and the data on SATA1. I installed Norton Corporate AV 10.2, as 

>we have on all of our other PC's.  Almost immediately the machine started going 
to 

>a black screen after the XP logo at bootup and just sit there.  After much troubleshooting, 

>I got the OS back after executing a "fdisk /mbr" command via an old Windows 98 boot 

>floppy.  However, the same sympton came back at the next bootup.  After some head 

>scratching, it turned out that the Norton AV was the problem.  After removing Norton, 

>all was OK.  To be sure, I re-installed Norton and the problem returned - removed 

>it and all was well again.  I then installed an older version of Norton Corporate 

>and the machine works fine.  Any thoughts or suggestions?  I contacted Norton about 

>this and as expected, they disavowed any responsibility for this mystery.  Thanks. 

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Thanks for the response. No, this was a clean install to a brand new PC. Aside from Office 2007, there were no other programs installed except for Norton Corporate v.10. I've had the machine up and running on the bench now for several days with an older version of Norton Corporate. It's been re-started probably 100 times now with no reoccurance of the problem.


On Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 5:37 pm, Ari wrote:
>Do you run any OTHER software that also does something to the master boot record
>or track 0? If so, perhaps it's the confluence of the two. For example: Norton
>(ironic, eh?) Goback, Rollback RX, Truecrypt (if you're doing full disk encyption),
>and Adobe Photoshop (thanks to the Macromedia Safecast activation scheme, which writes
>data to the boot track), do not play well with other software that messes with track
>0.
>
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Possibly the BIOS has a setting (as some newer BIOS's do) that is intended to block 
certain kinds of writes to the MBR as a species of virus protection...it's usually 
under "Advanced BIOS Features" in the CMOS settings; that might be conflicting with 
the MBR changes that your Norton is trying to make, as well.  I would check and see 
if my BIOS has that option and, if so, turn it off.







On Sunday, May 11, 2008 at 8:36 am, Jeff wrote:

>Thanks for the response.  No, this was a clean install to a brand new PC.  Aside 

>from Office 2007, there were no other programs installed except for Norton Corporate 

>v.10.  I've had the machine up and running on the bench now for several days with 

>an older version of Norton Corporate.  It's been re-started probably 100 times now 

>with no reoccurance of the problem.

>

>

> 

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