360 deleted system files and all my program files

Norton Security | Norton Internet Security
1

I purchased norton 360 all-in-one-security from harvey norman on thursday night.
I just installed it 1 hour ago on my Toshiba laptop.

It said it had to reboot to complete the installation and that it should automatically resume the installion after the reboot.

As soon as my laptop rebooted and it was on the user log in screen, first thing I noticed was that my picture was gone.
I logged in, and noticed norton hadnt resumed the installation. So I went into the thumb drive in My Computer and went to run it again as it suggested I might have to do before the laptop rebooted.
I clicked the Start file thats in the norton thumbdrive folder. It came up with the 'Welcome to Norton 360' window.
The window has a list: Install Norton 360 (It does nothing but close the window when i click on it)
Norton Premium Services (does nothing)

Norton Bootable Recovery Tool (does nothing)

Browse contents (takes me back to the thumbdrive browse window)

Exit CD (exits the window obviously)

Problems I've had: System files have been deleted to an extent. Laptop stills runs but norton has even deleted the file that starts system restore.
All my documents and pictures are still there but all the programs that open them has gone.
Program files folders is gone

Program files (x86) folder only has Adobe left in it. Everything else is gone.

So Norton 360, 1) Hasn't even installed
2) Deleted many files
3) Ruined my system restore and other windows files
4) Obviously also got rid of the files associated with WLAN since internet it no longer available. But that wouldn't matter anyway because it has deleted IE and Firefox.

I purchased this product to protect my laptop. It has achieved the opposite. This is the worst damage I've EVER had to any of my computers BY FAR.

I payed money to destroy my laptop.

Help imediately!!

2

Hi Greno,

 

I am sorry about what happened to your laptop.  Whenever you install the Norton 360, First thing it will do is to findout any other Antivirus Programs or any previous Norton is installed or not. So, have you come across anything like that.

 

If possible, please let me know have you installed any other antivirus programs before.  What is your laptop setup - Like operating system, version of Norton Product?

 

And to remediate this immediately, kindly contact the Norton Technical Support. I believe you are from Australia.  So, here is the Australia Technical Support Contact details:

Customer Service / Tehnical Support: 1800 680 026

Norton Technical Support: 1300 368 089

 

And let me know, If you have any other issues with Norton...

Also, I hope the issue will be resolved....

3

A trial version of Mcafee might have still been installed at the time.

The laptop is currently running Windows 7 Home Premium

 

It's Norton 360 STD 5.0 3PC USB

4

Did either computer have any other security software on it when you started downloading to install Norton 360? If so what is it; if there was and you removed it how did you remove it? Apart from the normal uninstalling nearly every security program has a special cleanup tool on its website that you can download and run after the normal install. Let us know first and we can point you to the right tools to use including one for Norton products if you had one installed -- like the trial versions that come on new computers. If they are identical to what you want to install now you may not have to clean up and we can tell you the shortcut.


NIS 2011 Netbook Edition:

http://us.norton.com/theme.jsp?themeid=netbooks_2011&header=0&depthpath=0
Greno,

 

Here's a link to the McAfee tool for cleaning up after uninstalling their security programs:

 

McAfeehttp://download.mcafee.com/products/licensed/cust_support_patches/MCPR.exe 

 

I'd suggest that you:

 

Download the Norton Removal Tool to a place on your drive you can find it but do not run it -- Save it.

 

This link: Symantec Norton Removal Tool. will direct you to the current Symantec Norton Removal Tool.

 

Check in Winodws utility Remove Programs (what it is called depends on what version of Windows you are using but you should be able to find it in Control Panel) to see if McAfee or any other security program is listed and if so Uninstall/Remvoe it.

 

Reboot

 

Check again and see if your N360 is listed and if so Uninstall / Remove it.

 

Reboot

 

Run the Norton Removal Tool and reboot.

 

Then reinstall your Norton 360 either from your disk or from a file we can link you to which will be more uptodate than any on a disk.

 

Here are the links to get the Norton 360 installation file -- make sure you chose the right one:

 

New N360 V5: Click on the link that matches your version:

 

Norton 360 v5 Standard: http://www.norton.com/n360s_5/  << version with 2GB of online storage

 

Norton 360 v5 Premier: http://www.norton_co​m/n360p_5/    << version with 25GB of online storage

 

Make sure you get the right version since the keys are not interchangeable. SAVE the file where you can find it -- do not run it from the download site when Windows asks what you want to do. 


You can download that file on any computer and transfer it to a thumbdrive to install on another.


When it asks you to activate it you can click on Subscribe and enter the key from the copy you purchased in the box for Have existing KEY or words to that effect.

 

Do let us know how you get on or if you have any questions. If yo do have any questions do please tell us what version of Windows you are using including Service Packs installed and whether 32 bit or 64 bit.

5

Turns out this laptop wasn't the laptop with mcafee on it. So no other security programs conflicted with it.

Sorry about the late reply. I've been extremely busy with work and doing overtime.

I appreciate all the help I've recieved and am satisfied with the response. Although I simply don't have time to go through all this problem solving solutions at the moment.

 

I have decided though, when I have time I'll just redo my laptop with a fresh install of windows. A complete clean slate.

 

I do have something to say though. Don't take this as hate filled. But I am very disapointed in what I have purchased. Before I bought Norton 360 I had no problems. I bought Norton protection in order to help with the perfect health of my laptop and just to feel more secure, and all it did was the exact thing I want it to prevent. It more or less destroyed my windows, deleted all my programs and made it impossible to do a system restore.

Now I'm not very familiar with the programming and coding side of things, but obviously something needs to be looked at here.

People can't go out and spend hard earned money, and have that time and money wasted due to design faults.

 

I hope you're listening to this. It's customers like me who will now never go Norton ever again due to this example of what has happened.

Again, clearly something in norton 360 hasn't been "written" correctly, or more so, maybe it has been written correctly but without the intention of having something like this happen.

 

Thankyou for the response though.

 

Cheers.

6

Greno,

 

Just rereading the thread I see my first message to you had a few lines near the beginning about N 360 Netbook edition that should be skipped -- the edting got screwed up and what should have been a simple delete by me actually moved to another part of the message what I was trying to remove completely! Computers  .... !

 

Restore To Factory Condition is a safe way to go back to a working system providing you can save your work and can reinstall any programs you may have added.

 

Note that it will reinstall any trial programs that Toshiba provided and so you have to be careful not to generate a conflict as indicateid can happen. I don't know what comes on Toshiba machines but you can check at their website or see what is listed in START / All Programs after you do the recovery.

 

I honestly do not believe your problem came from a programming error in Norton 360 since otherwise we would certainly be hearing about it all the time and elsewhere I do keep an eye on laptop and PC problems.

 

I hope you will let us help you get it right if you come back before trying anything .......

7

Folks, just so you know, this is not an isolated incident. I have the same issue on my HP laptop, where the 360 5.0 installation made all my program files disappear (probably hosed the registry) and I am unable to even run recovery. That being said, now I have no choice but to reload factory Win7 and painfully re-install all the subsequent applications. This 360 version installed OK (with a few tense moments) on my Win7 desktop, but butchered my laptop.

8

I don't think Norton did it, but an enbeded Virus that was not cleaned before you added NOrton.  Before you install anyuthing, have that puppy virus checked and cleaned.

9

Southalljr,

 

Norton did indeed kill my system - it has an out-of-control deinstall engine. You see, it had to deinstall ver 4.0 of 360 resident on the laptop, on which I just ran a complete scan with the latest update from Norton. So, my friend,now that you have some additional information, what's Norton's excuse?

 

BTW, thanks for your response.

 

Tom

10

I have also faced this probs.. But after reading this thread. I have come to know about the useful thing..!!

11

It is a good thing to get some feedback on this issue.  Without further details, though, it is not as helpful as it could be.  A comparison of each affected operating system is a good idea.  Are they all XP, Win 7, Vista.  What are the similarities and what are the differences?  That would help to pin down the problem.

 

Whether it is a new clean install or an over-install of a prior version is helpful.

12

Delphinium,

 

Some additional information of the laptop issue is in order:

1) I was attempting a 360 ver 5.0 install over a ver 4.0

2) ran full scan on laptop ver 4.0 with latest update before arttempting installation - no issues

3) laptop is HP G56, dual processor,3gb RAM, Windows 7

4) we were on-track with the install until the reboot immediately after it loaded ver 5.0 data - after reboot, Win7 appeared  to     come-up normally, but the optical drive was gone from the hdwe config with an error 39. At this point I tried to re-install associated driver and found all files were deleted.

5) tried to run recovery point, but nogo with the files gone

6) re-installed factory system image from recovery DVDs

7 performed an event-free install of 360 ver 5.0 on the new image and we're OK

8) installed ver 5.0 over 360 ver 4.0 on my wife's Win7 desktop with no issues. That I am capable of writing this with unbroken hands is testament to a smooth upgrade on the wife's machine.

 

Best Regards,

 

Tom

13

blitganger ...

 

I'm glad you got this sorted out but since the loss of the CD drive has been known to come up with people who have Nero software installed. Do you?

 

Just in case you may like to have a note of this:

 

Microsoft have a KB article on this with a FixIt utility -- It revolves around UpperFilters and LowerFIlters entries in the Registy

 

 

Your CD drive or DVD drive is missing or is not recognized by Windows or other programs

 

 

14

Moved to own thread for better exposure.