OHarris wrote:I have owned a Digital Storm Computer with i7 975,Windows 7 64bit, 12 Gigs of RAM, NIVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 for 2 years. During that entire time, I have had Norton Internet Security (currently 2012) and Norton Ghost 15.
About 3 months ago, my computer started randomly freezing/slowing down. By slowing down, I mean that it took 2 minutes to trash an icon on the desktop. I would log off, which took several minutes, and the computer would work fine for a few minutes/several hours and freeze again. I had not installed new software, so I was afraid I had a virus, and I completely reinstalled all software. The problem was still there.
I contacted Digital Storm and checked my hard drive and memory.
A few days ago, I spent a couple of days rebuilding my computer from the manufacturer disk. This time I installed each program and tested the computer. That is a difficult task because I had to install software and then updates, while having to go through all the problems software companies put their customers through to prevent privacy.
The computer worked fine. So, I installed Ghost, made a copy of my hard drive, and cut the computer off. The next day, I started my computer. It froze immediately. I used Revo Uninstaller and removed Norton Ghost and Norton Live Update.
The computer worked perfectly and has worked fine ever since.
I assume the problem is Norton Live Update.
I do not wish to go through this again, so now I am afraid to install Ghost 15, Norton Internet Security 2012, or Norton Online Backup.
I assume this does not happen to everyone, so there must be something on my computer that is conflicting with these programs. I have Microsoft office, Access, Photoshop, Lightwave 3d, Illustrator, Quicken, Internet Explorer, Blender 3d, Messiah Studio, OmniPage 17, Mathematica Home Edition, and Visual Basic. The utilities that own include RoboForm, Revo Uninstaller, GoodSync, Quicktime, Garmin Maps/Garmin Connect, and Stuffit 2009.
I would appreciate any help. Otherwise, I will have to find a new Internet Security Suite, Backup Software, and Online Backup Service.
An important piece of the puzzle is what happened when your machine froze after you rebooted at the end of the Ghost 15 install procedure. The problem is, you haven't told us what version of Ghost is installed from your CD. Older Ghost CDs install an early version of Ghost which is known to have problems immediately after the install - when installing to a completely-updated version of Windows 7. This leads directly to the headache you experienced.
You fix this problem as follows:
1A. You do not install from your Ghost CD-ROM. To avoid the problem you described - you download a copy of the newest Ghost 15 Installer available from Symantec - and use that to do your install. Your existing Product Key will work fine with the new Installer - and what you get once you activate the Product you install from the download is identical in functionality to what you get from the CD.
2A. However, before you install the updated version of Ghost 15 - you need an updated copy of the Ghost 15 System Restore Disk (SRD) as well - since this has also been updated. You do not want to use your old CD to boot to the System Restore Environment either.
Note: You are never going to use your original Ghost 15 CD again. You will do all your SRD creation and Ghost 15 installation procedures using the updated files you download from the Symantec website.
3A. See the following webpage to download the latest Ghost 15 System Recovery Disk (SRD):
Follow the instructions on that website to download the ISO - and then use the downloaded ISO to burn an updated System Recovery Disk. This is the version of the System Recovery Disk you use from now on.
4A. Once you have made the updated SRD - test the new SRD to see if you can use that CD to make a "Cold Backup" of your machine. You may be able to use the SRD in its unmodified form to make the Cold Backup - before you make any other changes at all.
If this works - you will be able to recover your System to the point of that Cold Backup - should anything go wrong during the following steps.
Note: If you cannot use the "default" SRD to make a Cold Backup at this point in the procedure - you will still require the updated SRD as a "source" CD to make the necessary Custom SRD - once the updated version of Ghost is installed and verified as working on your machine.
6A. See the following webpage to download the latest Ghost 15 Installer:
The biggest improvement from the use of the download is its improved installer. A bunch of the "gotchas" in the original install routines on old CD versions have been fixed. Thus, you avoid the problem you ran into while installing Ghost using your old CD. When you use the downloaded installer - it will ask you for your Product Key at the same moment in the install process - where the request would have come if you had used the CD. At that point, you simply input the same Product Key you used for your original installs when you used the Ghost CD-ROM disk - and you are in business.
7A. Once you have rebooted at the end of the Ghost 15 install process run from the downloaded installer, you should no longer have a problem with Ghost on that first reboot after installation. Once you have the newer version of Ghost 15 installed, use Live Update - to install any further updates to Ghost than those installed from the downloaded installer.
Note: You'll get an updated version of Live Update as well. More stability improvements. 
If all the above works properly, Ghost will install and work on your fully-updated W7 installation without any trouble at all. The next part of the procedure is as follows:
1B. You want a Ghost image at this point in the process - so that you can recover without trouble from any problems with the next part of the rebuild procedure.
2B. The instructions for making a proper Custom SRD - once Ghost is installed and working properly on your machine - can be found at the following website:
3B. There are some "gotchas" when Creating a Custom SRD when Ghost 15 is installed on W7 - because the drivers you need to install on the Custom SRD need to be the Vista versions. There are other posts in this Forum which describe how you obtain the necessary Vista drivers - should you need them.
Note: People who would like to use an SRD with USB3 drivers are the people who have the most experience with compatibility issues when trying to create a Custom SRD.
If you create a Custom SRD under Windows 7 and it doesn't work properly - posts describing how to work with those situations will contain the procedures you need to follow to get your Custom SRD working properly with whatever Vista drivers the Custom SRD Wizard tells you are supposed to be on your Custom SRD.
Now you know why step 1B is such a good idea. 
Hope this helps.