Clearing a Hard Drive

[dw58]

I just completed building a new computer and installed XP home. Everything went ok, I installed all of the basic programs, until I was installing Norton Works Pro 2003. I installed Works ok and I saw the GoBack program on the installation disk. I decided to install the program, big mistake! The program wiped out all of my partitions and data. I cried a little and then went about repartitioning and formating the hard drive. Then I rebooted to reinstall XP, the GoBack splash came up and ask for its cd's to be run. I have tried everthing, that my limited knowledge allows, to get rid of the GoBack residuals on the hard drive. No matter how I make partitions (with Partition Magic) or reformat, the GoBack program starts at boot. I tried using the XP installation cd to override the program, but the installation wizard crashes.
How can GoBack remain on the hard drive and keep booting up? How do I clear this off my hard drive?

 

[tyanni]

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nsw.nsf/docid/2001092611363307

This may not work, as I had a similarly difficult time getting rid of a similar program even after attempting the normal fix. IF not, you may want to do a low level format using a utility provided by your HDD manuf. That should completely remove it.


Tim

 

[nickaskew]

Hi

Create a bootable floppy (put a blank floppy in your drive, right click, format, select copy system files) and copy the FDISK.exe program from your windows folder (search if you can't find it).

1) Enter BIOS and set floppy as your boot drive
2) Boot up your PC with the floppy.
3) Run FDISK, delete every drive/partition you can see
4) Enter BIOS and set HD as your boot drive
5) Bootup with WinXP cd.

I hate programs like this that create utility partitions without so much as a 'are you happy about this?' statement..

Regards

Nick

 

[dw58]

I finally found the answer. I had to fdisk /mbr to remove the program in the master boot record. After running the fdisk, everything installed ok. I happen to read about clearing out a vires in one of the other forums and this is what is done to clear the mbr. Thanks for the help.