Can't Find Files

C

caputi

Member
I had the HDD scan virus which I think is removed. However, I have still have problems. Here are the symptoms. I am running Vista.

1. When I boot up, the desktop is black and all the icons are gone. I can change the color but it won't find any pictures. Quick launch icons are gone but tray icons are there.
2. When I open explorer, the standard windows folders (desktop, user, documents, downloads, etc.) are present. But they all show as empty. If I go to a cmd window, it also shows all directories as empty.

On the other hand

3. If I open Treesize and scan, I can find everything on the computer and run it normally, with a few odd hiccups. The stuff is there. But explorer doesn't see it.
4. I have networking and can surf the net if I search for the browser and then run it.
5. Media player seems to find files OK
6. If I search for a program, I can run it ok, with a few hiccups sometimes.
7. If I download and install a new program, I can create a new desktop icon. It then appears in explorer
8. All the desktop short cuts are gone. If I try to make a new one, the program says that there is already one there - even though it does not appear.

Any help appreciated.
 

My Computer

System One

If you don't have a backup image or restore point from before the virus I don't know if too much can be done. For future reference I would check into backing up your system partition to an external USB drive using a program similar to Macrium Reflect. There are other image backup programs besides MR. The "best" is the one that works flawlessly on your hardware. You can find some free ones here:

Free Hard Disk Backup and Restore, Hard Disk Image and Cloning Utilities (thefreecountry.com)

Also I've found ERUNT helpful. It creates a backup of certain Registry hives without backing up other files:

ERUNT and NTREGOPT

The readme file is rather intricate so it may be worth reading over what to do in case of a system fail and condensing it to a few notes.

Generally if you don't have a backup image or a clean restore point I think most consider it likely there's still remnants of a virus unless you format and reinstall. There are so many virus scanners that it's just about impossible to know how many to run before considering your system to be "clean" since they all have some tests the others don't.

Since the system is not running normally it's likely some things in the Registry are still hosed.

One quickie fix that may be worth trying and won't cost you anything is running MalwareBytes anti-malware complete scan. You may get lucky.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    HP Pavilion m9515y
    CPU
    Phenom X4 9850
    Memory
    8 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Some Radeon Cheapie with 512 MB Ram
    Monitor(s) Displays
    CRT
    Screen Resolution
    1280x1024
    Hard Drives
    750 GB SATA 3G
    2 SIIG Superspeed docks w/WD Caviar Black Sata II or III
Removing a virus does not fix the damage it has done. Try system restore. Else MilesAhead made some good suggestions. No need to repeat.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell
    CPU
    Q6600
    Memory
    4GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP w2207h
    Hard Drives
    2x250GB HDDs
    1x60GB OCZ SSD
    6 external disks 60 to 640GBs
    Other Info
    Also 1xHP desktop, 1xHP laptop, 1xGateway laptop
Just an observation. If it is a dell, most have a built in recovery partition as part of system restore.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Hewlett-Packard SR5019UK
    CPU
    AMD Athlon 64 processor 3800 + 2.40GHz
    Motherboard
    M2N68-LA (Narra)
    Memory
    2.50GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVidia GeForce
    Sound Card
    Realtec ALC888 Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    17" LCD Monitor
    Hard Drives
    160 Gb Usable Hard Drive
    Other Info
    HP G56 Laptop Win 7 64bit. 4Gb Ram DDR2's. Hitachi 450Gb Hard Drive. Pentium(R) Duel-Core CPU.
I can't restore because the restore points are after the problems started. I have already run malwarebytes, spybot, etc.

Ive been running an explorer alternative, xplorer2, and it has no trouble finding everything. Something is amok with vista
 

My Computer

System One

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Hewlett-Packard SR5019UK
    CPU
    AMD Athlon 64 processor 3800 + 2.40GHz
    Motherboard
    M2N68-LA (Narra)
    Memory
    2.50GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVidia GeForce
    Sound Card
    Realtec ALC888 Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    17" LCD Monitor
    Hard Drives
    160 Gb Usable Hard Drive
    Other Info
    HP G56 Laptop Win 7 64bit. 4Gb Ram DDR2's. Hitachi 450Gb Hard Drive. Pentium(R) Duel-Core CPU.
As you have stated above. There is something amok with vista?
But we don't know what that is, and worst of all, we don't know what caused it.
You may now be only a few files missing, but why/where?
If your system is infected, each time you go back to restore points, you are reinfecting your computer.
You have to in such cases delete any restore points.
The most excellent advice and suggestions have been given to you through the experienced members MilesAhead & whs
Are you able to do a malwarebytes scan as was suggested?
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Hewlett-Packard SR5019UK
    CPU
    AMD Athlon 64 processor 3800 + 2.40GHz
    Motherboard
    M2N68-LA (Narra)
    Memory
    2.50GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVidia GeForce
    Sound Card
    Realtec ALC888 Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    17" LCD Monitor
    Hard Drives
    160 Gb Usable Hard Drive
    Other Info
    HP G56 Laptop Win 7 64bit. 4Gb Ram DDR2's. Hitachi 450Gb Hard Drive. Pentium(R) Duel-Core CPU.
try creating another user account (admin) if all is well there, delete the old one, reinstall your programs.....

just a thought.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    acer aspire 6930
    Memory
    3GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    onboard
    Sound Card
    onboard
    Hard Drives
    320GB
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