Norton Internet Security / Norton AntiVirus

[dogsallover]

This is for NIS 2010 & 2011. I use genie timeline pro 2 as a system/recovery backup with a WD external harddrive with smartware. When I plug in the harddrive I get the error messagefor this drive  "system volume\information\EfaData\SYMEFA.DB is corrupt & unreadable". It also states to use chkdsk (...file or directory system volume\information\LightningSand.CFD is corrupt & unreadable. Please run ch...

[AllenM Norton Fighter]

HI dogsallover,

For some reason the way you formatted your post makes much of the text appear almost as a hyperlink. I was not able to see the entire contents of your post until I pressed "Quote" from the reply editor.

Can you please tell us a little more about your system? What OS and SP do you have and is it 32 or 64 bit? Did you upgrade from NIS 2010 to 2011? What version of NIS do you have from Support > About?

What other security (anti-virus, etc) did you have before NIS and how did you remove it before installing NIS? Did you use a removal tool supplied by the vendor of the previous security software? Any time you change security products it is highly recommended to use a special removal tool to remove the old software before attempting to install the new software. This is because software of this type integrates into your OS very tightly and there is a good chance that a typical uninstall could leave things behind which could cause problems with your new software.

Did you have this problem right off after installing NIS or did it start some time later?

Are these external USB drives or some other type? What size are they? What file system are they formatted with? If you USB are you connecting via USB 2.0 port or an older legacy port?

Have you run chkdsk on the drive to make sure no problems are reported?

From the main NIS window, what happens if you click Scan Now > Custom scan, then select just the external drive for scanning? Is the scan able to complete?

Also please check for events from NIS, click on History from the main NIS window. Do recent events show anything related to this drive? Can you also check Windows application and system events to see if anything is reported regarding this drive?

Hope this helps.

Best wishes.

Allen

[Tywin7]

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dogsallover wrote:

This is for NIS 2010 & 2011. I use genie timeline pro 2 as a system/recovery backup with a WD external harddrive with smartware. When I plug in the harddrive I get the error messagefor this drive  "system volume\information\EfaData\SYMEFA.DB is corrupt & unreadable".   It also states to use chkdsk (which I tried but didn't change anything). I have also gotten "file or directory system volume\information\LightningSand.CFD is corrupt & unreadable. Please run chkdsk utility." as well at times. Currently the former message is appearing. I also get these messages when removing the drive. Searching the internet, it seems to be a NIS issue. In fact, uninstalling NIS 2010 with removal tool took care of the issue. However, when installing NIS 2011, same problem occurred. The backup actually otherwise appears to function without any other problem. I had a similar problem (I am not sure if exactly the same) when using Casper 6 as a system/recovvery backup- I just never thought of NIS being the issue at the time. I have tried 3 different external drives (one a Maxtor not a WD) with similar issue. Anyone have a soultion or work-around, I would appreciate it. Otherwise, I'll have to go to a different security suite.

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Just requoting it so that you can see everything. Removed all the html links.

[dogsallover]

I'm using Win XP Pro 32 Bit. I've been using NIS for years.The problem was first noted while I had NIS 2010 running. It went away when I uninstalled the program with Norton Removal tool. The problem restarted when I installed NIS 2011 & restarted the computer & then plugged in my external hard drive.The problem is definitely related to NIS. I have now uninstalled NIS 2011 with Norton Removal tool & the external drive can be plugged in now without these error messages occurring. I am actually running a trial of ESET Smart security & the problem has NOT restarted. My concern with continuing with NIS 2011 is that when I actually need a full recovery with my backup program, whatever these error messages convey will somehow prevent me from doing so. Thanks.

[floplot Norton Fighter]

Hello dogsallover

Is your backup program always running in the background backing up your computer? I have Genie Backup Manager Pro, but I run a manual backup every day rather than having it doing it all the time. I know your program is a newer one than I have. Perhaps, if it's always running in the background, it's causing some sort of conflict. If you can schedule the scan for a certain time, perhaps you wouldn't get those errors. I don't know if this is the cause of the errors or not, just trying to come up with something.

[AllenM Norton Fighter]

Hi dogsallover,

I would encourage you to try out the things I suggested. This is part of the troubleshooting effort and we'll be happy to help out in figuring out what the problem is. But it is your call.

Best wishes.

Allen

[dogsallover]

Thanks for the feedback.

Greetings.

1) Floplot

     I too have genie backup manager which by itself does not elicit this error (with genie timeline removed). Genie timeline by its nature runs continuously.

2) AllenM

     Thank you for your thoughts. The problem 1st started after NIS 2010 had been running for several months. I haven't been using any other security programs. I used the norton removal tool to remove NIS 2010 & subsequently 2011. The two external drives are WD 320 GB with Smartware (makes a virtual CD partition) & the remainder which is its own local disk is about 298 GB. I using USB 2 ports. I ran chkdsk on the drive & no problems were reported. I was able to scan the external drives without problem. The only thing I didn't do was check for events from the history in NIS. I did check the windows event viewer & didn't see anything related to this.

I didn't mention this: The error message also comes up when I plug the external drive into another computer running NIS 2010. However, the drive otherwise behaves properly & I'm able to restore data from this external drive.

Right now I'm going to keep trying ESET for now & hold on pursuing this for now.

Thanks again.

[dogsallover]

I will add one more item. At this time, if I plug my external drive into any computer with NIS (2010 or 2011 tested), I get the same error message but no error message if plugged into any computer with any other security software.

[AllenM Norton Fighter]

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dogsallover wrote:

I will add one more item. At this time, if I plug my external drive into any computer with NIS (2010 or 2011 tested), I get the same error message but no error message if plugged into any computer with any other security software.

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Hi dogsallover,

Understood. My guess is that it is a permissions issue but we cannot troubleshoot this unless you want to work on it. Otherwise we are just guessing with no way to actually solve the problem.

Best wishes.

Allen

[reese_anschultz]

dogsallover,

When you remove the backup drives from the system, are you first powering down or using the USB safely eject function? Is Windows reporting this issue or NIS (I suspect the latter)? Are you using the drive in some other machine (non-NIS) machine before mounting it to the NIS machine?