Seem to have picked up a nasty from somewhere, each time I click on any of my drives I get the message "resycled\boot.com is not a valid Win32 application" or "E:\ is not a valid Win32 application" and and won't allow access to the drive.

Googling throws up some solutions that involve deleting a file from each of the hard drive's "Root Directory" I've followed the instructions about modifying the Folder Options but no hidden "Boot Directory" shows up - Am I looking in the right place?

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1) Navigate to the problem drive(s) via the Explore option.

2) Click on TOOLS -> FOLDER OPTIONS

3) Click the button which says ‘Show hidden files and folders.

4) UNCHECK the following boxes:

Hide extensions for known file types

Hide protected operating system files

5) Find and delete the autorun.ini file and the resycled folder on the root directory of all affected drives.

6) Check “c:\windows\system32\dllcache” for boot.com file and delete it if present.

7) Check “c:\windows\prefetch” for boot.com file and delete if present.

8) Delete all files from c:\windows\temp

(Some files may not delete, that’s OK, they’re in use by the system and not virus files.)

9) Delete all files from c:\Documents and Settings\[uSER PROFILE]\Local Settings\Temp

(Again, a couple files may not delete, don’t worry.)

10) Run Regedit

11) Make sure you are at the very first entry of the registry hive. (y Computer should be hilighted) then click EDIT -> FIND

12) Search for “boot.com”. If it finds an entry, delete it. Keep hitting F3 until you’ve deleted all instances of boot.com in the entire registry.

13) Scroll the left column back up to the top and hilight the My Computer again at the top of the registry hive.

14) Click Edit -> Find again and search for ‘resycled’ and repeat as in step 13, deleting the entries as it finds them. (I found 2 of each)

15) Close registry editor and try opening the infected drives. They should work now.

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I can still get to my drive by using Start - Explore so all is not lost though a long overdue clean Windows install is definitely now due.

Merry Xmas to all.

That would in most cases be the drive, i.e. C:, D:, etc. depending on how many partitions you have. Thus when you navigate via Windows Explorer and click on "C", you are in the root directory of drive C. Hope I am making sense here

That right, as Hanno says, the root directory is like the trunk of the file directory tree. Depending on you computers setup, your root will be the top level directory usually on the same drive as your operating system installation.

So if you 'Windows' and 'Documents and Settings' folders are located on c: in C:\Windows and C:\Documents and Settings then C:\ will be your root

If you can't access your file system through explorer, try using the Command Prompt(Start->Run type CMD in the run box and click OK)

You can then check to see the files mentioned above are present using the Dir and delete them using the Del command as in the example below. Note, don't type the lines starting with ** at the command promt, they're just comments

**First change directory to the dllcache folder on your root drive

C:\>cd c:\Windows\System32\dllcache

** Then check for the existence of the file boot.com

C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache>dir boot.com

Volume in drive C is DATA

Volume Serial Number is 00A7-F460

Directory of C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache

12/06/2008 11:28 121,856 boot.com

1 File(s) 121,856 bytes

0 Dir(s) 13,742,524,928 bytes free

** If the file is found, use the del command to delete it

D:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache>del boot.com

Yea! I thought the root was when I clicked on a drive but as non of the mentioned files showed up thought I must have done something wrong. Anyway got some of the files to show and deleted them but now I get a different message

"malcolmswaine" I'm not all that geeky and don't quite understand your deleting info. I brought up a DOS type window with "CMD" but when I pasted your command lines I got "is not recognized as internal or external command, operable program or batch file" message

Merry Xmas

This post says "Flash Disinfector" should fix your problem, and has a link to it in the article.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi...11102349AAwdbJz

I brought up a DOS type window with "CMD" but when I pasted your command lines I got "is not recognized as internal or external command, operable program or batch file" message

You probably didn't omit the C:\> prompt

Type:

cd c:\Windows\System32\dllcache

instead of:

C:\>cd c:\Windows\System32\dllcache

This post says "Flash Disinfector" should fix your problem, and has a link to it in the article.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi...11102349AAwdbJz

Thanks "Surface" that did the trick, don't know how I came to miss that post with the link. Must have spent a couple of hours searching for a solution but mostly found pages and pages of others having the same problem and some of the solutions were so complicated that after a while my head was spinning. Thats what's so great about this forum people who know more about a subject can deliver a swift and simple answer.

I brought up a DOS type window with "CMD" but when I pasted your command lines I got "is not recognized as internal or external command, operable program or batch file" message

You probably didn't omit the C:\> prompt

Type:

cd c:\Windows\System32\dllcache

instead of:

C:\>cd c:\Windows\System32\dllcache

This worked and got me to the next line but "C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache>dir boot.com" threw back the same "Not recognised" message. But never mind as "Surface's" link did the trick. Thank you anyway for the help always appreciated. Cheers.

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year

Daffy