I had a malware problem which really irritated me, it refused to go, so in the end I ended up rebooting my Dell Dimension 9100 back to the shop standards, I did back all my FILES up onto a Maxtor Basics 500GB external hard-drive, I had an error code which I presumed was because of a malware infection, but now I've rebooted it, I still get this "resycled\boot.com is not a valid Win32 application", I presumed because of the spelling mistake 'resycled' it was malware originally, what do you guys think my problem is?

I get this error when I simply double click on the drive in My Computer, but I can right click & explore, and get into the hard-drive fine.

Any help much appreciated.The spelling is the clue.

resycled/boot.com is a worm that propagates on local fixed and removable USB drives. It infects drives via autorun.inf files it creates that run a command each time the drive is accessed. Malicious files will be copied to drives attached on infected computer. It probably infected your USB drive which is why you got it back after you "rebooted". (Did you mean you reinstalled Windows?) Re post in the malware section, where the qualified experts can help you. Yes, rebooted to shop standard Windows XP with Service Pack 2 until I'm fully clean and then I'll up to Service Pack 3, I've also posted a thread in the Antivirus/malware forum.reboot simply means to restart your computer... "reformat" is probably the word that better describes what you had done.Okay, apologies.

Dias de verano, thanks very much for you stating the obvious, I google the virus name and came across a small freeware software developed by SUBS called Flash Disinfector what kills problems like mine. Hopefully I shouldn't have this problem again. I don't normally comment on the format/reformat terminology, but it does bug me a bit. To "format" a disk means to lay down a file system on it. Whether it be FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, ext3, reiserfs, whetever. I suppose it it had been formatted already, you could put a 're' in front of the 'format' but it isn't really needed. However, these days a lot of people refer to the whole process of formatting a disk and reinstalling Windows on it as 'reformatting' which I don't really like but I suppose I'm in a minority.


your right- I don't usually use the term Reformat to INDICATE a complete reinstall of an OS as well as a format of the disk containing it. I was merely giving them a more appropriate term then that they USED- reformat is far closer to format/install then "restart", albiet not completely accurate for the ACTION being referred to.