Two (maybe more?) Norton Internet Security files are corrupt and preventing Windows 7 Home Premium from booting...
Upon booting I am taken to the Win7 Startup Repair which says the SYMDS64.SYS file is corrupt ....
The hardware has been tested and is fine (no bad sectors or memory problems) ...
Booting in any and all modes (safemode, etc) take me to the Startup Repair ... (However I can get to a DOS prompt and have limited windows functionality after the Startup Repair finishes or if I insert the Win 7 Installation DVD)
Via DOS prompt: I can see the files "SYMDS64.SYS" and "SYMEFA64.SYS" are both 0 bytes (which obviously means they contain no data)
I've read forum posts where people who have N.I.S. on two machines simply replaced the corrupted SYMDS64.SYS file on the bad system with a copy from the good system with success (but no mention of the SYMEFA64.SYS file)
However I do not have access to these files since N.I.S. is only on one of my systems
I can't go to a restore point because Windows says: "No Restore Points Have Been Created On This Computer"
I've tried "Last Good Configuration" and it just boots up into the Windows Startup Repair again
At the suggestion of a support rep I renamed the files to "SYMDS64.BAK" and "SYMEFA64.BAK" and rebooted. It had no effect. (the files have been put back to their original names again)
Please understand that I've spoken to 7 or 8 Symantic reps today who have done things such as:
Flat out deny the SYMDS64.SYS file is a Norton / Symantic file
Stonewall and Ignore my very legitimate questions to try and find a solution
Blame Shift! ie - Constantly tell me to contact Microsoft to fix YOUR files ... (guess what Microsoft tells me?)
Repeatedly asked me to boot to safemode and so on after I've told them several times the computer won't boot to any mode
My personal Fav - Tried to remotely connect to my non-bootable computer?!?!
It's getting hard to trust you guys at this point and I need REAL answers. Seriously... Please Help!
If you can get to the safe mode and see the files can you also delete all of them?
This will not solve all of the problem(s) but might get you to the point of being able to boot to the desktop so that the balance can be dealt with
If there are no other Norton products on the disk then the removal tool will clean out everything Norton so you can do a clean install and be right and ready to go
But if your renaming the files, something (Norton) must be renaming them back or restoring them somehow.
.bak is associated as a backup of a file, have you tried renaming it something else, like .Bad?
When you enterthe location to where those drivers are located, the folder that it's in is all norton drivers.
I'm running a 32bit OS, my folder is:
windows\system32\drivers\NIS\(numbers).
The folder I have is a string of numbers, if yours is like that and only contains norton files and drivers, perhaps rename the whole folder.
Of course make a note of the folders name in case you need to change it back.
Best of luck,
Dave
Nothing has renamed the files back to their original file names other than me doing it manually in an effort to not make so many changes to the system that I can't find my way back home again
If you can get to the safe mode and see the files can you also delete all of them?
This will not solve all of the problem(s) but might get you to the point of being able to boot to the desktop so that the balance can be dealt with
If there are no other Norton products on the disk then the removal tool will clean out everything Norton so you can do a clean install and be right and ready to go
Hope this helps
I can't get to safemode but I can, and did, do something similar to your suggestion .. i moved the folder from its location and rebooted .... it didn't solve anyhting. The only thing different is that after Startup Repair ran it didn't specifically name any file as the problem (which makes sense since it couldn't find the file any longer)
Before anyone says "Then how do you know it's the SYM*.sys files then?" ...
A) Windows Startup Repair said it was
B) The files are 0 bytes
C) It didn't find any other problems once the dirctory was moved
Sorry, when you said the files have been since renamed I didn't know it was you that renamed them.
FrequentC wrote:
I can't get to safemode but I can, and did, do something similar to your suggestion .. i moved the folder from its location and rebooted .... it didn't solve anyhting. The only thing different is that after Startup Repair ran it didn't specifically name any file as the problem (which makes sense since it couldn't find the file any longer)
Before anyone says "Then how do you know it's the SYM*.sys files then?" ...
A) Windows Startup Repair said it was
B) The files are 0 bytes
C) It didn't find any other problems once the dirctory was moved
What happens at this point, when you reboot does it try to load windows or get stuck in a loop and go back into startup repair?
If it tries to load windows and gives an error about not being able to find a file (because it's been moved or renamed).
Do you have an option to continue, or if you just press the enter key does it continue or do you get stuck in that error?
It must be a different behavior in windows 7 64bit. I don't have a 64bit test system.
On my 32 bit system with windows 7 pro, I booted to the recovery console and renamed those 2 files and had no trouble booting back into windows. Not a single error all the way to the desktop. Obviously NIS didn't work.