Help! N360 killed my new laptop!

Help!

 

I bought two new laptops before Christmas, both running Windows 7 with pre-installed NIS on trial licences.  I was advised to buy N360 3.0 as well, and to install it when the trials ran out.  Well, that's where the trouble began.

 

In went the CD, and the installer detected NIS.  It said it would uninstall before adding N360, and asked for the new key.  After apparently loading the N360 files it restarted my machine, only for it to freeze at the login screen.  Scrambled the display (like when cable signal goes funny on a telly) and a constant beep - I had to hold the power button to kill it.

 

Same again when I restarted, so I tried starting in safe mode.  NIS was still there, but not functioning, and N360 was "empty" according to Start-All Programs.  I tried installing again in safe mode, but on restart got the same deal.  I eventually gave up and used restore to recover my Windows, but in doing so it removed any vestage of N360 and left me with non-functioning NIS (which still had about a week of licence...).  If I run the Removal Tool it gives a blue screen of death on restart.

 

What has happened here?  How can I fix it?  Right now Norton is deep in the brown stuff as far as I am concerned!  Will I need to have the HD wiped and rebuilt with Windows?

 

(I looked round this forum, but the only similar thread I found seemed to resolve itself with Removal followed by installing downloaded N360 3.5...)

 

In despair,

 

Tom