Help! NIS Update Has Led To The Blue Screen Of Death

Hi All,

 

Hopefully someone out there can help. I was using my Dell laptop tonight, and an NIS 2009 window popped up stating that I needed to reboot to receive the latest definitions update. The option "Restart Now (Recommended)" was highlighted, and I wasn't working on anything important, so I hit okay to let NIS do its thing.

 

Well, when the laptop went to start back up again after the NIS update, I got the Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD). I'm sure you've seen it before, but it said:

 

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

 

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

 

Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

 

Technical information:

 

*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF78EB524, 0xC000000E, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

 

Since this was the first time I had seen the screen, I restarted my computer. When I did so, I got the usual Dell screen, but it was followed by a black screen that said "We apologize for the inconvience, but Windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this." Five startup options were listed (3 Safe Mode options, a Last Known Good Configuration Option, and a Start Windows Normally option). I have tried all five, and with each of them, it proceeds to the Windows XP startup screen for a few seconds, and then on to the BSOD. When I shut down and try to start up, the cycle only repeats itself.

 

When I'm fast enough, I can hit F12 before the black screen appears, and get to the Boot Menu. I ran the onboard diagnostics (included the very thorough diagostic tool from Dell) and everything checks out perfectly (Memory, Hard Drive, etc.). On another occasion, I popped in my Windows XP system disc that came with the laptop and booted form that. When I got to the setup menu, I selected the Recovery Console option by pressing R. I was able to get to the command prompt, where I didn't know what to do, so I ran CHKDSK. That found an error and fixed it, but still no change in the startup problem. I there a way I can boot Windows using the system disc so that I can backup my files (without reinstalling Windows and losing everything)?

 

So I need some help! To say that I am frustrated is a HUGE understatement. Everything was working great until this NIS update hit. In fact, this is the first time I've ever had any problem like this! What has Norton done to my laptop?

 

I currently have nothing attached to my laptop whatsoever (except for the power adapter). I haven't installed any new hardware (ever), nor have I installed any new software recently. I've looked through the boards a bit, and it seems that others have had BSOD problems with NIS, but I didn't see anything recently that looked like my issue. I also noticed that Norton has been rolling out a new update to NIS over the course of the month. Could this be the update that has crippled my computer? Again, it doesn't look like others have had this problem, but it seems like a no-brainer that NIS is the culprit here given how this happened.

 

I now have a completely unusable laptop that I need to get working again. What should I do next? Is there a way I can remove the NIS update? Do I have to do something with the registry? My immediate concern is also to get all of my files off of my laptop and onto a USB drive or the like. Please be specific/detailed, because as I wrote, I have not come across the BSOD before, and have little experience with this type of problem, removing updates, or working with the registry.

 

Any assistance is much appreciated! Thanks in advance for your help.