I would appreciate some help

Viruses and worms
1

Hello,

I have found infected items on my system and want to try to get rid of them without doing a fresh install of my OS

I have 2 500BG drives on my system and I use one for storage and the other for my OS I do have both partitioned into 3 drives each.

Some of the infected items are in the RECYCLER & System Volume Information on the drives that are just for storage, I found the folders but they are grayed out and I can’t delete them. Is there a way to make the folders active so I can delete them, they are not needed on a storage drive are they???

Another question: I found some infected items in my email “sent items.dbx” I can just delete that dbx file can’t I???

I really appreciate your help

2

You could also check the offending/suspect file at: VirusTotal - Multi engine on-line virus scanner and report the findings here. You can’t do this with the file securely in the chest, you need to extract it to a temporary (not original) location first, see below.

Create a folder called Suspect in the C:\ drive, e.g. C:\Suspect. Now exclude that folder in the Standard Shield, Customize, Advanced, Add, type (or copy and paste) C:\Suspect* That will stop the standard shield scanning any file you put in that folder. You should now be able to export any file in the chest to this folder and upload it to VirusTotal without avast alerting.

If it is indeed a false positive, see http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=34950.msg293451#msg293451, how to report it to avast! and what to do to exclude them until the problem is corrected.

next update avast and do schedule a boot time scan rt click the blue ball
post the log back here

3

Thanks for the reply but I am not trying to find out if they are false positive and have no need to upload anything to Avast I just want to be able to access the RECYCLER & System Volume Information folders.

I have researched this problem for days and have tried everything.

turned monitoring on and off on those drives

gone into safe mode

Made sure I took over all permissions ( I already had all permissions )

I want to be able to un-gray those 2 folders so I can delete the contents then I’ll turn monitoring off for those drives and only keep it on for my OS drive.

when all else fails how can I gain access to those 2 folders on a storage drive???

4

What OS?
show hidden files and folders
etc
these are not encrypted or anything, compacted etc?

5

Been there done that

folders are not encrypted or anything, compacted etc?

6

System volume information is system restore. Clear your restore points and make a new one.

For recycler, I suggest emptying the recycle bins in all accounts on all drives.

sent items.dbx isn’t a file as such, it’s your sent items folder in Outlook Express. Empty it.

HTH

7

I can’t access the System Volume Information Period !!!

I’m not asking what to do I know what to do it’s just that it doesn’t work… I can’t get the System Volume Information to not be grayed out

8

Try this if you haven’t all ready

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309531/en-us

9

You don’t have to do that, you utilise system restore to clear the system volume information folder/s.

Create Clean Restore Point - Clear old Restore Points.

To create a clean System Restore point:

  1. Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System tools, System Restore.
  2. In the pop-up that appears fill in the radio button to Create a Restore Point
  3. Click NEXT
  4. Enter a useful name that you will remember if you need to find this again (Clean Restore Point)
  5. Click CREATE

You now have a clean restore point, you should clear the old ones:

  1. Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System tools, Disk Clean Up
  2. Click OK on the C: drive
  3. Click the More Options tab
  4. In the System Restore section click the Clean Up button