Help - viruses found in non-existant folder?

[thrashercharged]

Hope you guys in this forum can help me here. I'm no expert on anti-virus stuff. My Symantec AntiVirus just gave me 1700 notifications of viruses and trojan horses found. It says they're in the path:
d:\downloads\_ \Ace Buddy v3.0.exe
etc. Ace Buddy v3.0.exe being replaced by a multitude of other legit sounding filenames for various programs, I apparently have 1700 of these programs right now. Symantec is unable to quarantine and clean - both failed.

when I go to the folder d:\downloads\ I don't see any other files or folders. I've enabled to see hidden files. The folder appears empty. Any help in deleting these files is appreciated, and any idea what's putting them into this d:\downloads folder? My d: drive is a partition I put my data on, I have WinXP and all programs installed on the c: partition. I don't recall ever setting up a d:\downloads folder either.

Thanks,
Tom

 

[LawnBoy]

If the folder's empty delete the whole thing. You'll probably have to reboot first and go into safe mode to delete it.

If that doesn't work you've more than likely got a rootkit. Time to fdisk.