I have Norton on my machine, and have it's protected recycle bin. I have been trying to permanantly delete items retained therein and have reviewed their wipe instructions, but cannot locate the files and folders deleted from XP but remaining in the Norton bin. This is beginning to irritate me. Plese guide me though the process so the items cannot be restored.

The answer to your problem is to completely remove Norton recycle bin, and never, ever install it again as long as you live. It's rubbish.

if you are fimiliar with the registry editing you can remove all trace of norton including its accossiated programs i.e live update which is another reason for being unalbe to uninstall all of norton.never have it on your machine there is better.

You can right click on the recycle bin and choose Normal Recycle Bin. THis will bypass the crappy Norton bin and return everything to normal.