Trying to help someone who needed to get on the net in a pinch, I put Zone Alarm on his laptop. It immediately caused slow downs, and wouldn't let me remove it with it's own uninstall because it was a demo. So, I used add/remove programs. Then I went to the ZA site and found out what might remain in the registry, searched for it, it wasn't there.
The whole system was paralysed. I used Advanced System Optimizer to clean the registry, and then the programs would work, but both startup and shutdown took about 8 minutes. I tried reinstalling ZA with my own reg code, just so I could do another uninstall, using the right tool. I did that, but there was no improvement. When I tried starting in Safe Mode, I got a screen saying something was "stuck" and was directed to a bios page. Here was my biggest stupidest mistake: I said restore default bios. Dumb, dumb dumb!!!
After that, it would boot (still 8 minutes), but do nothing. I mean, I couldn't click on a thing that would work. I have no start menu...wait, it just came up, it took about 10 minutes!
What can I do? He has important data on here. I can't just wipe the disk! Is there a way to put the bios back to where they were when I clicked "restore default bios"????? Does that even matter? If I can get the programs to work again with ASO, is there another way to get startup and shutdown to work? Have I ruined everything?
Seriously, I'm shaking...please help if you can!!!
The whole system was paralysed. I used Advanced System Optimizer to clean the registry, and then the programs would work, but both startup and shutdown took about 8 minutes. I tried reinstalling ZA with my own reg code, just so I could do another uninstall, using the right tool. I did that, but there was no improvement. When I tried starting in Safe Mode, I got a screen saying something was "stuck" and was directed to a bios page. Here was my biggest stupidest mistake: I said restore default bios. Dumb, dumb dumb!!!
After that, it would boot (still 8 minutes), but do nothing. I mean, I couldn't click on a thing that would work. I have no start menu...wait, it just came up, it took about 10 minutes!
What can I do? He has important data on here. I can't just wipe the disk! Is there a way to put the bios back to where they were when I clicked "restore default bios"????? Does that even matter? If I can get the programs to work again with ASO, is there another way to get startup and shutdown to work? Have I ruined everything?
Seriously, I'm shaking...please help if you can!!!