I'm running windows 98 se. Here is my problem. Someone sent me a virus the other day that I have been unable to get rid of. I think they may have created it themselfs so no scanners are picking it up. I found out that It was being booted from the registery, I tried deleting the .com it loads and the .exe file it loads. Then I edited both of them out of boot and registry. Everytime I boot up they both come back!!! How can this happen? I was searching on the net and found out about the master boot record, some virus's will be loaded from this. I'm guessing that is what its doing. Is there a way to edit the master boot record? I was search for any kind of tools or documentation but couldn't find any. Please help! Will

Get a Windows 98 SE boot floppy and startup your computer with it. At the A: prompt type in 'fdisk /mbr' (no quotes) and press enter. That will rebuild the master boot record and get rid of any virus that maybe residing there.

I think you have misdiagnosed the problem. What you describe, with the files coming back, sounds more like Windows File Protection and is the way Windows protects itself. Doing a fdisk/mbr is harmless so go ahead. You might want to mention in the future why you think its a virus and what the file names are. Also include what registry entries you are changing. You never mention any system changes except that there is a unknown undetectable virus. Might want to update or get new virus software. Most will detect viral activity in addition to a known viral signature. So the virus can be unknown but still detected by what it is trying to do. Look for the heuristics section in your antivirus software to configure this component.