How do I?...No.43

[JaXanim]

If this concerned my Amiga I wouldn't be asking. So, as it's a peecee/WinXP of which I know next to nowt, maybe someone will help out.

It got infected with some malware which none of my antivirus(AVG)/spyware(AdAware) stuff could fix. There were .txt files with hidden .exe extensions all over the shop. AVG saw them as viruses OK, but couldn't fix, delete or quarrantine 'em. A real load of use that is!

Anyway, when I was trying to clean it up, I noticed my boot scanner showed suspect files on the second drive (D:). Some of these were in two folders I didn't recognise (D:Recycle and D:Recycled). These appear to be part of the malware, which spawned dubious content throughout drive C: and then started on D:. Most of that I managed to delete manually. Annoyingly, it then started spawning again so I had to reformat drive C: and start over....probably not necessary when you know what you're doing, but I don't.

Anyway, under WinXP the two folders are not shown when I open D:, which I assume means they are hidden (?). I want to clear these away, but don't know how.

So, How do I delete these folders?

What's the best (free) malware treatment?

Cheers,

JaX

[JaXanim]

@all

Thanks for all the help and advice, I'll get some of the suggestions installed to supplement my existing stuff.

The problem was caused by me inadvertantly opening an email attachment to see what it was. Fatal eh?!

Anyway, it installed a set of three files (all with hidden .exe tails) wherever there was a shared folder on my system. That turned out to be lots of places. It was supposed to pop up a porno screensaver, XXX rated .avi's and such stuff. Luckily, it didn't get chance to run cos I shut everything down as soon as AVG sounded the claxon.

The daft thing was, AVG's Resident Sheild sounded the alarm bells but the AVG disk scanner reported no virus infection anywhere on the system. The shield spotted dozens, but the AVG wasn't able to do anything to resolve the problem. I contacted the AVG support team who implied that my spyware kit was probably at fault and recommended a commercial package. In other words, it wasn't a virus.

Even dafter, I DO have the AVG rescue disks I made weeks ago. I just forgot about them while thrashing around not knowing my Mars from Uranus. Reformatting seemed the only way. As I said, peecees are a black art to me!

As to the elusive Recycle/Recycled folders, I'll leave as is. No 'virus' is now reported by the scanners, so whatever was there before seems to have become harmless.

[Edit: Yes I have WinXP/SP2]

Cheers,

JaX