This is quite odd.

[pyrate83]

Ok, today I found 19 infected files on this system. All trojan viruses. I was just performing a routine scan and discovered this mess. Well to say the least, I was not pleased because I couldn't heal or move these files to the virus vault. The only way I could rid the system of them was to permanently delete the files manualy. So I did. System seems to be running just fine however now I am finding system files in some really strange locations. For instance, all of the album art pics for CD's in musicmatch showed up in the folder where I keep my music files. I also found a database file in another folder that wasn't there previously. WTF? Does this sound bad and should I reformat the HDD or is this really nothing to be concerned about?

Thanks in advance.

[redwudz]

What are you running for antivirus and antitrojan? I've been using AVG, Spybot S&D and SpywareBlaster. I go to some bad places occasionally (RU sites) and have had no problems. Only when I disable these protections have I had attacks, and I was still able to deal with them with little problems.

I also use a hardware router firewall and a proxy server, though.

If you are just running antivirus, that's not enough these days.

If you surf in the nether places often, you might want to look into a system restore program like Acronis or Norton Ghost to get your system back. Sometimes that's the only way to recover from some of the newest nasties out there, short of a system reinstall.

[Conquest10]

You shouldn't have stopped running the firewall. Serves you right.

[glockjs]

i wouldnt worry about it too much. thats the reason you have an AV proggy, to find them in the first place. as long as your system seems to be running fine i wouldnt worry about it too much. does your AV have live protection? if not switch to AVG so it can stop most of them before they start.

[Guest]

I found a trojan with counter spy that wasnt found by norton. I think it might have been part of my TIVO server,because after that it would not let me transfer tivo recordings to my pc. When I removed the CS program it worked again.

[Marty2003]

The system files you mention are all normal. If you play music files with windows Media Player it will save a copy of the album cover from the internet into the song's directory. Music Match might do the same, or you might have used WMP.

I'm guessing the database file you're talking about is Thumbs.db . Windows uses that file to store the thumbnails of images on you're hard drive so it doesn't need to open the file each time to show the thumbnail. There should be a thumbs.db wherever there are image files.

[pyrate83]

The system files you mention are all normal. If you play music files with windows Media Player it will save a copy of the album cover from the internet into the song's directory. Music Match might do the same, or you might have used WMP.

I'm guessing the database file you're talking about is Thumbs.db . Windows uses that file to store the thumbnails of images on you're hard drive so it doesn't need to open the file each time to show the thumbnail. There should be a thumbs.db wherever there are image files.

Yep the thumbs file is exactly what I was talking about. However, it isn't in a place where the image files are?

[pyrate83]

You shouldn't have stopped running the firewall. Serves you right.

I didn't ask for hostility or criticism...I asked for advice thank you very much.