Virus?

[vollman1]

I am having the following symptoms and need to ask for help. I am not sure if it is a virus or another issue and need advice.

1- on start-up, all usb ports show with letters (E:, F:, G:, H:, etc.) even though nothing is plugged in
2- the remove usb storage tray icon is there on start
3- indexing seems to be on now (tray icon with the magnifying glass)

It is happening to both of my older Dell computers.

Things that I have tried:

1- Re-installing OS (XP sp3)
2- start in Safe-Mode with networking and downloaded MalwareBytes and ran a complete scan.

Nothing came up through MB and Kaspersky Pure scans.

Has anyone had a similar problem or have any knowledge about it? Not sure what to do from here.

Thanks for any help offered.

Edit:

My children's WOW account was hacked a while ago and we still get many suspicious e-mails from various "Blizard" sources. Not sure if this helps.

 

[abekl]

Did you reinstall with formatting? If so, no virus could survive that. It doesn't sound like a virus, sounds more like a tweak made you your system by some windows update.

 

[vollman1]

I reformatted but I don't know if it took down all partitions or not.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Make sure only one computer is on the network at a time when you're reinstalling your OS's. A virus/worm can detect other computers on the network and reinfect them. Basically, pull the ethernet cable from any machines you suspect of being infected. If it needs to be on the network/Internet, make sure your other computers are shut down so they can't get infected.

 

[vollman1]

kk ty

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

This topic has been closed by Area51reopened

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Best answer selected by Area51reopened.