NIS2008 TO 2009 UPGRADE WON'T PLAY NICE WITH NSW2003 - REPEATABLE ERROR

I’m running a fully patched XP-SP3 machine with Systemworks 2003 installed, excluding the anti-virus module and NIS2008 a/v & firewall. I got the e-mail inviting me to a free upgrade to NIS’09, and installed it. On installation the '09 upgrade failed and left a partial un-install. I un-installed & re-installed 08 but then kept getting BSOD’s - ntaccess.sys  and another one that WER suggested was caused by my a-v product. One crash corrupted the registry fatally & caused an external 120gig NTFS partition to go RAW . I tried the Norton removal tools to no avail so I reformatted my C: drive and installed & patched XP-SP3. From a virgin XP install I then installed NSW’03 (excluding a-v) & ran live update, and then installed NIS08 & updated - system worked fine. I then downloaded & installed the '09 upgrade - failure & BSOD’s again. Format & install XP again, NSW’03 & NIS’09 upgrade installed - BSOD’s. Another reformat, XP-SP3, NSW’03 & NIS’08 installed - system works ok, but still have RAW external drive. I  bought a box version of NIS’09 during the sales, prior to trying the upgrade but have not yet broken the seal. Does anyone have any ideas about how to fix this problem, or should I take the NIS’09 box back for a refund.