Corrupted or virus inbox file

Help!! Somehow either a virus slipped by my Norton AV or the Inbox is corrupted.

Norton-2003 reports the Netsky virus in my inbox. I cannot access the inbox or d/l mail, but everything else works. But when I run the Norton Netsky removal tool, it reports no viruses found on my PC.

Now the interesting part. When I open my Mozilla directory with Windows Explorer and place my cursor ON the inbox, I get the Norton Virus warning, and when I clear the warning, the inbox and the cursor "flicker" as long as the cursor is on it. That could be Norton in background. I cannot rename, move, copy or delete the inbox, but I can the small inbox.msf file.

My inbox is 700mb, and I am willing to lose whatever is in it, just to get it working again.

Any Ideas????

 

This is, unfortunately a problem that should be known by Norton users, but they don't know about it. I am enclosing part of an e-mail which I got from the tech guy at the U. of Nebraska Med.Cntr. from which I retired, recently.

How to restore a quarantined Inbox to recover old e-mail messages
When an Inbox is placed into quarantine, Netscape or Outlook Express will create a new Inbox. Please follow these steps to restore the quarantined Inbox:

NOTE: If you have e-mail in this newly created Inbox, first move these messages to a different folder. Please see your Netscape or Outlook Express documentation for instructions on how to do this.

To locate and rename the newly created Inbox file:
1. Exit Symantec AV or NAVCE if it is running.
2. Search for the Inbox file. Follow the steps for your operating system below:

Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000
1. Click Start, point to Find or Search, and then click Files or Folders.
2. Make sure that "Look in" is set to C: and that "Include subfolders" is checked.
3. In the "Named" or "Search for..." box, type--or copy and paste--the following file name:

* If you are using Outlook Express 5.0, type:
Inbox.dbx
* If you are using Netscape, type:
Inbox

4. Click Find Now or Search Now.
5. Look at the file or files that are displayed in the results pane.

* If only one file is found, then proceed to the next step.
* If more than one file is found, then take note of the folder where the file is located.
o The Outlook Express 5.0 Inbox will usually be in a folder that begins with the path C:\Windows\Application Data\Identities and then continues with a numbered folder containing other subfolders.
o The Netscape Inbox will usually be in a folder that begins with the path C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\
6. Right-click the Inbox file, click Rename, and then rename the file to Inbox.bak.
Windows XP
1. Click Start, and then click Search.
2. Click All files and folders.
3. In the "All or part of the file name" box, type--or copy and paste--the following file name:
o If you are using Outlook Express 5.0, type:
Inbox.dbx
o If you are using Netscape, type:
Inbox
4. Verify that "Look in" is set to "Local Hard Drives" or to C:.
5. Click "More advanced options. "
6. Check "Search system folders. "
7. Check "Search subfolders. "
8. Click Search.
9. Look at the file or files that are displayed in the results pane.
o If only one file is found, then proceed to the next step.
o If more than one file is found, then take note of the folder where the file is located.
+ The Outlook Express 5.0 Inbox will usually be in a folder that begins with the path C:\Windows\Application Data\Identities and then continues with a numbered folder containing other subfolders.
+ The Netscape Inbox will usually be in a folder that begins with the path C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\
10. Right-click the Inbox file, click Rename, and then rename the file to Inbox.bak.
To restore the old Inbox file:
1. Start Symantec AV or NAVCE, click View, and then click Quarantine.
2. Click the inbox file to highlight it and click Restore.
NOTE: The Restore button looks like this: like a bucket, whose contents go into a folder.

You can get around the problem by having an exception to .msf files. Norton does not have a clue that the Inbox is a single file. One virus there, and you have had.

 

Worked like a charm!

Thankyou thankyou thankyou.

While most of your fix was related to finding the inbox, which I already know, the part about disabling NAV was the key that eluded me.
Now I was able to rename inbox to something else, power up mail, and by-golly, it's working now.

Now to find a way to recover a few emails from that corrupted old inbox. None critical, but I would like to get them back.

I could not quarantine the old inbox because I have no control over NAV-2003. None of it's menus work, but it does function in background. Nortons site is less than helpful, none of the fixes they show worked, and there is NO support anymore for NAV-2003. Ever since Symantic took over, Norton has lost value, and has become user hostile with regards to support.
NAV-2003 IS my last Symantic anything purchase.

 

Your Inbox should not be corrupted, but ddid you try to delete the Inbox.msf file, which tends to be corrupted.
As for Norton, i tried once about five years ago, and within a couple of days i had no Inbox. CompUSA which sold it to me took it back, telling me that Norton will do that. I was also told that Norton had fixed the problem.
You must not allow Norton to scan your mail, or you will be back to square one.

 

My inbox

The virus or corruption was most definitely in the INBOX file. The inbox.msf file was clean. When I was able to rename the bad inbox and move it away from that directory, Mozilla worked normal. There was no need to mess with inbox.msf. A new (empty) inbox replaced to old one.

A buddy said that sometimes Norton can be fooled by a corrupted uninfected file, especially a file that had been previously cleaned, which this one was.

I have to let NAV run. I get about 50 spams a day and fully 1/3 are virus laden. I am on an intranet that has at least one infected computer, and nobody wants to sleuth it out. Up to yesterday, Norton has caught all but 1 of them. The one that slipped through last time happened when I started my Mozilla mail, before Norton IPL'd. I was in a hurry that morning, but wasted 3 hours killing the virus after that.

 

The procedure I gave you supposed to be to recover mail from a quarantine Inbox. Did you click the Restore button in Norton?
I was suggesting to delete the .msf file because it will not do you any good after all this. It is the old header file, after all. You want to delete it, so that a new one will be created.
I am giving all these suggestions without having experience what you have, now, at least. I sent another e-mail to my friend, but it may be too late. I will try to get someone else who has Netscape experience and also Norton.

 

Like I said, I have NO control over Norton

Like I said, my Norton will NOT respond to ANY menu command at all. NOTHING. It is dead. It only runs in background in default mode. None of the fixes on Nortons site worked, and there is no support, paid or otherwise, for NAV-2003.

It was far less important to recover the old inbox contents than to get my inbox functioning again.

One of the first things I tried was deleting inbox.msf but that just disabled the inbox function and nothing worked. When I disabled NAV (on your suggestion), I was able to move the corrupted/virused inbox out and then everything worked normally after that. Mission accomplished.

 

I hope that it keeps working. I have been so concerned about Norton, which came free with my new computer, that I uninstalled it.

 

Then....

It should not concern you any further.

Except for the viruses that are not caught. The only reason I've kept NAV-2003 up and sorta running, is it was catching those viruses in background.

And I get 10+ a day from infected PC's on my Intranet, which nobody seems to want to fix.

 

As I said, I don't have Norton, a search will give the info which you need. This is what I got "In Norton AntiVirus 2003, 2004 or 2005, you can add exclusions to either Auto-Protect or the manual virus scan. "
Mail will have viruses, but you are not obligated to open attachments. In fact, if you accept the Netscape setting Viruses will not come to you, unless you ask for it. The exclusion should be to .msf files, and your Inbox will be safe. The rest is up to you.
Right now I am scanning all mail with AVG 7.0, but I still detect attachments which I don't trust. And, they always come from someone I don't know, from an account which is very similar to mine. That's Spam!
But, you should not disable Norton for good. It is a great but scary program.