Our account subscription was renewed yesterday. My husband experienced something similar when he turned on his pc this morning. He has Windows 11 installed. The message was something like: "Norton could not restart computer...Restart now. He clicked the restart button and now his computer is locked in an unresolvable cycle.
First, An automatic system repair message appears: "the operating system did not shutdown cleanly. Reconstructing Cache Metadata. Please do not interrupt this process. (process outcomes were detailed when done)."
Then, 4 options appear on a new blue screen:
>Continue (Exit and continue to Windows 11);
>Use a device (Use a USB drive, network connection or Windows memory DVD) [no devices available, cannot access network];
>Troubleshoot--Restart your PC [no luck]
Use Advanced Options--Reset [did not work], then reinstall Windows [did not try], Factory Image Restore [did not work], ); and Turn off your PC [Turning on again leads to the same problems].
These options disallow complete entry of the lengthy recovery key number ID (provided) using the keyboard and nothing happens when they are selected. It is merely a circular exercise returning to the blue screen with the 4-option list.
Control-Alt-Delete does not restart the computer.
Looking for HELP, please.
P.S. - Sorry for duplicate of reply to another similar issue. Even though signed in, at first, I was denied access to add this question. Finally got in.
Hello again, thanks for the post-back. Windows 11 ONLY comes pre-installed on NEW computers. Windows 11 is offered as an FREE upgrade to Windows 10 through Windows updates. As long as you have a Microsoft account, AND, log into the computer with those credentials. And indeed. Windows 11 is riddled with issues, many of which are new one. The OS is still BETA the way I view it personally. Not worth the headaches involved, my recommendation is wait, and wait for Windows 11 to "mature". Once its known to be a stable OS I will consider moving in that direction as well. I have devices that are more than capable of running Windows 11 yet...Microsoft limits their support for the CPU's installed. Its not worth the added cost of an upgraded motherboard with a supported CPU and new memory.
Hi, SA -- Christmas got in the way, and I had written a long reply ... went to give you a kudo ... and my reply had been erased.
Thank you for the great suggestions. My hubby is a get-it-done-now guy and he had paid Data Doctors to replace his hard drive and reinstall programs at the same time of your reply. FYI he was charged $300. DD also got it done within a week.
I will follow up your suggestion on the backup of all devices. I don't understand the difference between "stored images" and "data," but it may not matter.
This morning, I caught up on others' Norton Community issues...wow.
Windows is now pressuring me to install Windows 11 (which my hubby subscribed to with purchase of his laptop - includes my computer, too, he says). I am reluctant to do so and he won't re-install it, either. Data Doctors could not re-install WIN 11, only WIN 10. I recall that WIN 10 had many bugs when it was first released. More research for me to do.
Can't thank you enough for your patient and kind assistance. May 2022 treat you well.
Thanks for the post back. As suspected, drive failure. If I may, just have them install a new SSD and bring the computer home. Don't allow them to charge you for installing Windows 10 because. IF, you were signing into the laptop WITH a Microsoft account login under a Microsoft account, you can download Windows 10 again on your own FREE of charge. Here is great, user friendly tutorial to accomplish that. Once Windows 10 is installed AND, you create your login AGAIN in the new install, sign in with those credentials, Windows 10 will re-activate without cost to you. Because, Microsoft will remember your system and know its already valid. We here, can step you through that process if needed.
As for whether Norton or Microsoft are at fault with this failure, I have to lay equal accountability on BOTH. Neither have any readily available documentation regarding disabling trim ( in Windows ) nor the background tasks / drive optimization ( Norton ), that consumers should see, up front and straight away when installing Norton nor using Windows. Sadly it is most times after the fact and the results are as you are seeing. We can help with disabling those settings if you wish.
I may suggest performing regular backups of your data from all your devices to a removable drive. I would also, create images of each and store them on a separate removable drive. Macrium Reflect Free is a great solution for those tasks. Macrium is easy to setup, user friendly and free to use. I use it for all the stored images on my devices, highly recommend you do so as well.
We just got the Data Doctors diagnosis 5 minutes ago: the Hard Drive is "dead." They cannot get into it at all. We are guessing, as you suggest, that the approximately 3-yr. old Dell Inspiron convertible laptop does have an SSD hard drive . We have been Norton customers since early 2000s and are increasingly disappointed with customer service which never was all that great. I meant to cancel our Norton subscription for several reasons, and forgot to do it before it automatically renewed.
My HP Spectre is an SSD, as is my Samsung portable SSD. Now I worry about it being vulnerable.
I didn't "get" all the techie explanation, but enough to understand that Data Doctors' diagnosis might be correct. This is the first time we have called on them. So, they offer to replace the hard drive, which we will do plus re-install the programs. All data likely is lost.
You're most welcome. Thanks for your information and post-back. Hearing that you used Geek Squad as a possible fix resource makes me cringe in almost every way possible. I've personally seen the results of their "work", its been most times scary to say the least. Below are a few thoughts about what is going on. I will TRY not to overload you with tech talk but want to make sure the proper things are being done now that won't create a larger problem if they aren't.
One other thing comes to mind, does the affected computer have an NvME-SSD installed for boot caching? Or any memory installed related to Optane? My HP probook has a small 32GB NVME installed to assist with the system boot times. I also have removed " Intel Rapid Storage Technology" packages from ALL my systems that have it installed and it isn't needed. IRST can be used with a standard hard drive or a solid state drive or SSD.
If you can get into the system BIOS at boot (F-2 or F12), please look at the model information present there. Also look at the information about what TYPE of drive your boot-drive is, IE: is it an SSD or standard hard drive. Get that information for us if you can, that info will help us understand some things that can possibly be the culprit. In the BIOS select "restore defaults", save that information ( most likely F10 )
Based on what DOESN'T happen when all the troubleshooting tests are done, I'm initially thinking your boot drive C:\ is in fact an SSD. Windows 10 will perform what are termed as "trim and re-trim" commands on the master boot drive. Norton will also use those same Windows "trim and re-trim" commands to optimize your hard drives for maximum performance. Trim and retrim are NOT needed with an SSD on Windows and should not be allowed with Norton or other performance utilities as well. They will seriously degrade the life span of an SSD and eventually cause it to fail. Cache metadata rebuilding SUGGESTS there is a SSD failure, my reasoning? Metadata is recovery data. If a factory reinstall of the OS fails there is zero possibility of recovering from that. Please let me know what Data Doctors have to say for follow-up.
Hello ZonieB. A bit more information will help us help you. What Norton product do you have installed? First tell us the manufacturer and model of the computers with the issue.
Edited: Please verify what version of Windows are on each computer and post back here that info.
1 Was your Norton product already installed before the restart?
2 Was there ANY other security software installed before the restart occurred ?
3 When performing a computer power-up from being completely OFF, can you press F12 and change the boot device in that listing?
4 Were there ANY Windows updates also being installed at the time this issue occurred?
5 Were you attempting to remove or install any software and have you had any similar incidents? Had the computers ever been "forced" to be shutdown or had seen a power outage that would have caused a shutdown?
Doing some research this is a common problem that has been around for a few years with MOST of the computer manufacturers. Ranging from Windows 7 up to Windows 10. I'm not seeing anything published for Windows 11 as it is a new OS.