As you can see, in the Opera 9 folder, there should be two folders called "Mail" and "Profile". Now those folders are gone (possibly deleted by my Anti-virus software). Other folders are still in there (Classes, Default, etc.).

Also, Opera 9 cannot run. It says some .dll missing. I'm sure my AV deleted the .dll, because it was infected.

Why would any virus or AV delete those two folders? How can I get my bookmarks back??

If the folder was deleted not a whole lot you can do. Your best bet would be to try a file recover program, like Recuva. Not sure why any A/V would delete those folders to be honest.

I know this doesn't help you directly at this point, but the new Opera 9.5 has Opera Link, it will backup your bookmarks, speed dial, and personal bar settings to a My Opera account for free. I use it to keep my Opera installations synchronized.

I recall a thread in the opera forums quite a long time ago about one AV that falsely detected a Opera .dll as an infection. So, I wouldn't be too sure that it was infected in the first place, especially if you are using AV heuristics which can be unreliable.



A decent AV shouldn't delete those two folders entirely, however even the best AV's do mistakes which is why I never let a AV do any changes to my files without requesting it, that way one can easily avoid problems such as what you describe.


Have you checked if your AV have the files in the quarantine? If that is the case they shouldn't be too hard to restore, however it may then be a good idea to run the file(s) through another AV (there are plenty of good online scanners for that purpose) for a 2nd opinion.