Norton Crashed my laptop & passed the buck Cupertino California

Your computer isn't crashed as in you need a new computer or a new hard drive. The data on your hard drive is still there and completely recoverable. What happened is that some files needed to start Windows are misplaced the OS can't find them, but they are there.

It's easy to blame the Norton tech support guy. After all, he was the one pushing the buttons, but in reality, I'm sure he pushed all the correct buttons. All he's really guilty of is not knowing how to recover you computer.

First piece of advice: don't use Norton. It is an incredible resource hog and adds tons of entries to the computer registry. That's why Norton is difficult to remove and why this type of crash is not uncommon. There are other good anti-virus programs available that don't cause nearly as many problems. I have been using a free product from AVG for years and have never had a single problem.

Second piece of advice: if you have XP and haven't done so already, try booting into safe mode and starting Last Known Good. If it that doesn't work and you are comfortable being your own tech support, google the error message you included in your post. There are lots of posts on how to recover from this error, and you will see that most people were removing a Symantec product when this happened. If nothing else, the search should convince you that your data still exists.

If all else fails, take the computer for service. Your hard drive is good and your data is there. Do not reinstall the operating system.
Best of luck.

It appears as though Norton/Symantec knew that there was a problem with the removal of their Norton Internet Security program and their Norton GoBack program, both of which are on my system.

Following is the link to their site with the "solution" to my problem.

Either they purposely held back this information from me or they didn't want to go through the necessary steps to help me fix the problem.

Here is the link from the Symantec site and the text from the site:

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/goback.nsf/0/2ea703f568eeeddd88256d8f0075dfb1?OpenDocument


Error: "Autochk program not found . . . "

To fix this problem, confirm that the latest updates for Windows and hardware drivers have been applied to the computer. Contact your hardware vendor to ensure you have the latest drivers.

Norton GoBack does not support computers that use striping (RAID). Uninstall the RAID drivers and see if this fixes the problem. If you cannot access your computer or boot into Windows because of GoBack, then disable GoBack at the startup screen.

We suggest that you print this page before you start.

Because you must return to this page after you restart the computer, add this page to Favorites.

Disable GoBack

1 Restart the computer.

2 Watch the computer screen during the restart process and press the spacebar when the GoBack splash screen appears.

3 In the Norton GoBack Boot Menu, click Disable.

4 Click Yes when prompted.

All historical information is cleared when you click Yes. Deleting the Norton GoBack historical information is required when Norton GoBack is disabled.

5 Click OK.

6 Click Continue.

If the problem continues, confirm that your hard drive does not have a hidden partition. Contact the computer or hard drive manufacturer if you do not know how to check for a hidden partition on your hard drive.

Document ID: 2003082714360158
Last Modified: 04/28/2008
Date Created: 08/27/2003
Product(s): GoBack 3.0 Deluxe, GoBack 3.0 Personal Edition, GoBack 3.1 Deluxe, GoBack 3.1 Personal Edition, GoBack 3.2 Deluxe, GoBack 3.2 Enterprise Edition, Norton GoBack 3.5 Personal Edition, Norton GoBack 3.6, Norton GoBack 4.0
1995 - 2008 Symantec Corporation


I'm not sure how to go about it, but I will pursue every avenue to have Symantec pay for the repair of my computer, once I get it back, based on this information.