Vanity- Help! I've been infected with HDDRescue

[TexasBarak]

Need some Freeper help here- I've seen this kind of thing mentioned on here before. My computer has become infected with a virus that tells me I have a "hard disk" problem, that can only be cured by registering their software (six or seven different versions, it would appear).

This happened to my wife a couple of months ago with her laptop- she went in under "safe" mode, downloaded and installed Malware Bytes, and the problem was solved. We did the same tonight with my computer, but it did no good. does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

[Calamari]

Do a system restore back to a point before the infection happened. Then update all the windows updates that were rolled back.

If this does not work format the drive and reinstall. Hopefully you have your data backed up.

[Sarah Barracuda]

I always found Spybot and Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware to be wonderful programs. I guess it depends on what kind of crazy virus your infected with. I have a Dell, no longer under warranty(I just did not find it worth it to spend 250 bucks for 4 years just to get some guy on the phone who had no clue what he was doing). I’ve had many scares with my computer but always found those spyware programs to be very beneficial. I use FireFox and those pesky viruses still find a way to get through, even without you realizing it til its too late. WOW 15,000 viruses..never heard of that many on one machine. That’s incredible..a few is horrible, can’t imagine 15,000, glad you got everything cleared up. Yes always always always back up your drive with everything that is important to you, because once its gone its gone.

[ChildOfThe60s]

Interesting.

My laptop runs Ubuntu, but my (for work) desktop is Win7. I see that some of these are Linux based so I it seems I could make the disk on my laptop if my Win7 machine got infected.

Gotta check and see if my boot sequence includes USB, I really like a bootable flash drive.

[dajeeps]

Have you tried this?

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-hdd-rescue

My son had a really nasty virus a few months back and bleeping computer helped me get rid of it.

Another thing you can try before you do anything in safe-mode:
Type mscongfig at a command line
Click the radio button for “selective startup”
Uncheck “load startup items”
Click “apply”
Click “close”
Reboot

With that, anything in your startup won’t load when you reboot. That might shut off the virus long enough to download, update and run a full scan of Malware Bytes.

The reason you’d want to do it this way, rather than in safe mode is because some parts of the registry can’t be edited in safe mode and if the virus has invaded them, it won’t get rid of it. And this one you have might be a variant of the one that your wife had on her computer rather than the same one. Hackers share (or steal - really who would complain about copywrite infringement) virus code all the time and they each play with it to make it do different things so the same remedy may not work.

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

I had the same or very similar problem a couple years ago. It was driving me nuts as nothing seemed to be effective against it. I am running XP home edition and eventually restored the system to a previously check-pointed version. That worked with no further evidence of the problem. I am currently running the AVG pro suite which gives you anti- virus, spyware, malware, firewall, &c, &c, all is well and remains quiet.

Good luck!

Regards,
GtG

[dajeeps]

I had a typo in my instructions.

It’s msconfig to run at the command line.

[calex59]

Go in with safe mode and restore your computer to an earlier date. That usually, but not always, takes care of it. Also, go to bleepingcomputer.com and download combofix, it works on almost all viruses and malware.

[calex59]

I’m going to agree with you on Linux Mint, however, I can’t run Netflix instant play on Mint so use XP for most of my computer work. I do love Mint though, and I hope soon Netflix will realize that there are people other than Microsoft users in the world.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I tried that once and it didn't work. Fixed two Win XP desktops and one Win 7 laptop with the same problem* in the original post using the methods mentioned in post 16. The key was killing the programs with the task manger as soon as windows comes up. Don't wait for programs to load.

*This comes under many different names and screen displays but it's all the same junk. The person who made this program deserves the most horrible and painful STD there is from an ugly Democrat strumpet.

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

I also have Carbonite, advertised by Hannity and Rush, that backs up my files off site.

I do backups to an outboard Terabyte hard drive (about $90.00). Not sure that I trust Carbonite or any other "off site" solution. When I unplug the USB cable my data is safe as a church and available even if I lose the Internet.

To each his/her own...

Regards,
GtG

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Reboot while pressing the F8 key, but don’t go into safe mode, chose system recovery instead. Restore your system to some date in the past before you got the virus. That should fix it.

[ansel12]

By the time I was done fooling around and turned it over to the Geek Squad, I had more than 15,000 viruses on my computer.

The computer I am using right now was like that when it was given to me, I used freeware like Avast, anti malwarebytes, and superantispyware to clean it up, now it works great, and the free ware, including windows defender, and windows firewall keeps it clean.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Problem was this thing is a sleeper and almost impossible to track when you got it. I was going to many news and sport boards at the time when it first showed up. Other infected computers showed no common use or sites.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Bump....

[perfect_rovian_storm]

That is a drawback, but I’m against all that DRM-riddled stuff anyway. Usenet gets the movies quicker anyway.

Until the movie companies start getting real about fair use, restrictions like that are going to exist.

[terycarl]

a simple question from an obviously non informed computer user.......why is there not a serious penalty for someone who infects another persons computer???or for that matter, hacks anothers system!!!!!

[afraidfortherepublic]

I didn’t say the free programs were bad — just that some of them conflict with each other and sometimes you can’t remove the conflicting program. I say try Spybot, or another anti malware program, all alone. Don’t layer several programs. That’s how I got in trouble. If it doesn’t zap your virus right away, then consult a professional, after you are sure that all your files are backed up.

BTW, that computer that had been infected with 15,000 viruses is still operating after I got it cleaned up, although it is pretty old. It has been upgraded to the max (XP — started out as Win98).

[RedhairRedhair]

Just kill the malware processes so that the anti-malware program (Malware Bytes) can do its job.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic308364.html
You can download Rkill here then run Malware Bytes

[ottbmare]

You guys talk about going in on Safe Mode, but you may not know that with some of these damn things you can’t—the computer is so frozen you can’t get it to shut down much less reboot.

[cherry]

I had something attack my lap top and it virtually took it over....lucky for me, my bright sil sat down, pulled up on his ipod instructions on how to get rid of it and he got rid of it......took several minutes but it got done....