possible virus?

I could really use some help here. For some reason, my computer is suddenly unable to detect my CD-ROM drive. Which is weird because I've used my CD-ROM drive hundreds of times.

I think the problem might be related to a strange icon that suddenly appeared on my desktop on July 24 of this year. The icon was called "silent", and the picture is of a monitor and a CD. Only, on the monitor there is another picture of what looks like a horse - could this be a trojan horse?

I right-clicked the icon to view the properties. Apparently it is an application, it's 131KB and it originated on my desktop, but that's all the information available.

Of course I did a virus scan (several, actually) but it isn't picking this up, and my virus definitions are up to date. I googled a description of all of this and checked the symantec and macafee websites, but I couldn't find anything that even came close.

What is this thing and how do I get it off my computer?

 

it could be spyware or something bad like that (it's worse than a virus, imo)

download spybot (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2471) and adaware (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=506) to scan your computer.

 

I have both. Neither are picking it up.

 

hmm... maybe cwshredder? otherwise, i'm at a loss. If it's a virus or horsy, it's doing a great job doing almost nothing but annoy you.

what happens when you run the computer in safe mode?

 

check in the BIOS and the device manager to see if it shows there, if it does your drivers may have become corrupted(possibly by whatever that "silent" app whatever it may be or other cause) ... or try swapping the drive with known working one, it may be your cd drive just burnt out ... if thats the case look on the bright side buying a RW would be good upgrade