Help - laptop issues, and new antivirus

scubaangel

I've a couple of questions if anyone can help.

The first and possibly the more serious is that this evening my laptop has started displaying error messages informing me that my harddrive has errors. The one which just popped up says 'Critical Error. Your private data may be at risk' (am posting from my netbook rather than the laptop). And then trying to run 'System Diagnostics' but the program just doesnt look 'right' to me - certainly it doesnt appear to be a microsoft program. So I'm wondering if it's a virus that my antivirus hasn't picked up?

Secondly the antivirus on both my netbook and laptop is due to run out this month so I'm wondering what is best to use at the moment?

closed

1. look below, there are about 20 threads about this infection and how to clear it up.

1st thing to try, shutdown, and do a system restore

2. Avast 6 free + malwarebytes free

chunter

Kaspersky 3 users - £18 delivered
http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/13864335/Kaspersky-Pure-3-User-License/Product.html?searchtype=allproducts&searchsource=0&searchstring=Kaspersky+Pure+Security&urlrefer=search

scubaangel

Thanks closed, it only just started to try to run the 'system diagnostics' as i posted if it'd been there before i'd have searched it (I'm not usually one to ignore previous threads).

Malwarebytes I already run when I don't think my usual av has picked things up so I'll get avast 6 once I've sorted the virus.