Hard drive error - scam or genuine?

Steel_2

About half an hour ago my husband's 5 month old Dell Inspirion developed a hard disk error.

Loads of warning triangles lit up along the bottom of the toolbar as warning after warning window came up

"system message - write fault error"

I tried to click on just one of the numerous windows, only for the computer to shut itself down and restart itself. His desktop with pictures and files appeared looking normal then suddenly a black screen came up with just a recycle bin. The background picture has gone as have all the files on the desktop.

The computer began automatically running time a disk recovery programme, identifying in less than 30 seconds 7 critical errors with my hard disk etc and prompting me to click on repair.

Stats were reported as: Reliability 23%, Performance 49%, Error resistance 17% (critical); Relocated bad sectors 2407, Pending bad sectors 2266

When I clicked on repair it brought up a window telling me I only had a trial licence of the software and to pay for a licence to activate it.

I closed that window and was greeted with 15 system message windows saying:

"A write command during the test has failed to complete. This may be due to a media or read/write error. the system generates an exception error when using a reference to an invalid system memory address."

After waiting a while more error messages started flicking up now and then

Critical error - drive sector not found error
this device cannot find enough free resources that it can use.
Device initialisation failed

When I didn't respond another 15 system message screens pop up. Then another 6.

Is this real or is some scamming company trying to fake a genuine microsoft data recovery software?

I'm feeling pushed into buying something quickly and the last time something like this happened it turned out to be a very clever scam webpage that I only just caught in time before I bought repair software.

Figment

It's a scam, you've picked up some malware.

CoolHotCold

Backup all personal data onto external HDD or DVD/USB stick and do the Dell system restore, quickest and most sure way of being clean.

Steel_2

Now I have another error message

"serious disk error writing drive"
"Critical error - hard drive controller failure"

I'm currently running a full scan using McAfee, which I've just managed to download updates for before running.

Hubby cannot remember what he last looked at on the internet a few hours ago or whether he had left internet explorer on it while he went out.

I'm sure he must have done for me to able to download new updates from the Mcafee website just now, which is making me even more suspicious that this is a fake screen and everything is really behind it and ok.

Steel_2

CoolHotCold wrote: »

Backup all personal data onto external HDD or DVD/USB stick and do the Dell system restore, quickest and most sure way of being clean.

Can't do that. Whatever this is when I click on the start menu there is nothing there. In fact, the buy licence screen has just jumped down and covered the menu so I can't look at it any more!!!

There is no way for me to be able to do anything until I find a way to get rid of this.

Figment

or if you'd prefer to remove the infection instead, start here >>> http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/protect/forum/protect_scanning/smart-check-suddenly-came-up-on-my-computer-with/3ecb4a14-6193-47a2-9ddc-7a15ec4e4486?tab=MoreHelp

Steel_2

Figment wrote: »

or if you'd prefer to remove the infection instead, start here >>> http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/protect/forum/protect_scanning/smart-check-suddenly-came-up-on-my-computer-with/3ecb4a14-6193-47a2-9ddc-7a15ec4e4486?tab=MoreHelp

That's it!! You are a star.

Using my laptop to download one of the programmes onto a flash drive.

New error message: now it is a "very serious critical error" :rotfl:

robmar0se

You have the system fix virus. You need to take great care. and for the moment just power down the system. If you take the wrong action you could make the fix more complex.

Steel_2

robmar0se wrote: »

You have the system fix virus. You need to take great care. and for the moment just power down the system. If you take the wrong action you could make the fix more complex.

If I power down what do I do after?

McAfee found nothing on its full scan.

waddler_8

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

Scroll down to "Automated Removal Instructions for Smart HDD using Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:"

Follow steps 1 - 23

It worked here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/53086265#Comment_53086265

robmar0se

thanks Waddler, had a domestic here, had to run away!

The Op may also need to unhide his desktop etc, may I leave it to you to resolve this too..

Message to OP: don't try and unhide things, as you may just make any subsequent fix more complex.