Search for Files/Folders not working

OS W2K, SP4; OE6, SP1

I am having a problem with the "Search for files & folders" function. -- the indexing is turned off.

When I do a search for the single letter "a" or other items that start with "a," e.g., "ab" "ac" "ag"...
the search only looks at the WINNT directory on C.

Searches for other combinations of "a", e.g. "adobe" or "ad" work and look at the entire computer or local harddrives.

It does a proper search for "a" "a..." when I select an individual drive.

The Search just won't read anything else than C:\WINNT\ when I search from "my computer" or "local harddrives" with "a", "ab", etc., but there are exceptions.

The problem doesn't seem to exist when searching for files/folders beginning with other than "a."

I was recently hit with Trojans & Viruses but they were caught by my anti-virus (hopefully). Anyway, the system is presently clean.

Any ideas? reg file?

Bob