OK, if it really won't get past block 1698 on redownload, then we're in stranger territory.
Yes, possibly he has antivirus software or even a router or filewall that is pattern matching a sequence of bytes and censoring it.
It would be instructive to get knightmb's blk*.dat and see if that gets him past that point.
BitcoinTalk
Re: ERROR - PLEASE HELP ME!
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: ERROR - PLEASE HELP ME!
Date: