I noticed a problem a while back. I have a folder on my hard drive labled Art. It's where I keep a couple of graphic programs I use, and also had all my pictures, family, cars, bikes, fishing, etc. Well, all that is gone.
I've tried replacing the programs, but the next time I boot up and look, they are gone again. I've run a number of programs, AVG, I've tried Avast, Ad-Aware, Malewarebytes, and all have found problems and removed them.
My problem still exists. I did go through the steps you have listed here, and was in the middle of yet another full scan, when XP decided it was time to update, and wanted to reboot. I put it off for awhile, but it was late, and I wasn't going to stay up all night telling it later....
Any and all help will be appreciated. I did notice on boot up that there was a dos message....something about wrong or illegal boot.ini, but everything seems to run ok otherwise....internet is a bit slow for DSL.
thanks for your time.
R.