How to remove HDD Control malware

HDD Control is a malicious program that pretends to be a computer defragmenter and optimization program. It hijacks your PC, blocks Windows legitimate applications from running, presents various fake critical errors alerts that the computer’s hard drive is corrupt in order to frighten you into purchasing this useless application. It is a new malware from Defragger malware family as Check Disk, Scan Disk, Ultra Defragger, HDD Defragger, etc.

The main method for distribution of HDD Control is by trojans. When the trojan is started, it will install the program into TEMP folder under different random names. Next, it will be configured to run automatically when Windows starts.

Like other fake defragmenter programs, it does a fake scan of your computer then tells you it has found numerous critical errors such “Read time of hard drive clusters less than 500 ms”, “32% of HDD space is unreadable”, “Bad sectors on hard drive or damaged file allocation table”, etc. HDD Control requires you to pay for the fake software before it “repairs” your machine of the problems. Of course, all of these errors are a fake. The misleading application only imitates functions of computer defragmenter software and unable to detect any problems. Most important, don`t pay for the bogus program and just ignore the false scan results.

HDD Control will also prevent you from using other programs or the internet by shutting down programs every time they are opened. Moreover, this malware will flood your computer with nag screens and fake alerts. Some of the alerts are:

System Restore
The system has been restored after a critical error. Data integrity and hard drive integrity verification required.

Windows – No Disk
Exception Processing Message 0×0000013

Critical Error
A critical error has occurred while indexing data stored on hard drive. System restart required.

Of course, like false scan results above, all of these alerts are just a fake. This is an attempt to make you think your computer in danger. Like false scan results you can safely ignore them.

If your PC has been infected with HDD Control malware, follow the removal instructions below in order to remove HDD Control and any associated malware from your computer for free.

Automated Removal Instructions for HDD Control

Step 1. Reboot your computer in Safe mode with networking

Restart your computer.

After hearing your computer beep once during startup, start pressing the F8 key on your keyboard. On a computer that is configured for booting to multiple operating systems, you can press the F8 key when the Boot Menu appears.

Instead of Windows loading as normal, Windows Advanced Options menu appears similar to the one below.

Windows Advanced Options menu

When the Windows Advanced Options menu appears, select Safe mode with networking and then press ENTER.

Step 2. Clean temp folder

HDD Control stores its files in Windows temp foder. You need to clean it.

Please download ATF Cleaner by Atribune from here, saving it to your desktop. It is used to cleanout temporary files & temp areas used by internet browsers.

Start ATF-Cleaner.exe to run the program. Under Main choose: Select All and click the Empty Selected button.

Step 3. Remove HDD Control and associated malware

Download MalwareBytes Anti-malware (MBAM). Close all programs and Windows on your computer.

Double Click mbam-setup.exe to install the application. When the installation begins, keep following the prompts in order to continue with the installation process. Do not make any changes to default settings and when the program has finished installing, make sure a checkmark is placed next to Update Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware, then click Finish.

If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version.

Once the program has loaded you will see window similar to the one below.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Window

Select Perform Quick Scan, then click Scan, it will start scanning your computer for HDD Control infection. This procedure can take some time, so please be patient.

When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results. You will see a list of infected items similar as shown below. Note: list of infected items may be different than what is shown in the image below.

Malwarebytes Anti-malware, list of infected items

Make sure all entries have a checkmark at their far left and click “Remove Selected” button to remove HDD Control. MalwareBytes Anti-malware will now remove all of associated HDD Control files and registry keys and add them to the programs’ quarantine. When MalwareBytes Anti-malware has finished removing the infection, a log will open in Notepad and you may be prompted to Restart.

HDD Control removal notes

Note 1: if you can not download, install, run or update Malwarebytes Anti-malware, then follow the steps: Malwarebytes won`t install, run or update – How to fix it.

Note 2: if you need help with the instructions, then post your questions in our Spyware Removal forum.

Note 3: your current antispyware and antivirus software let the infection through ? Then you may want to consider purchasing the FULL version of MalwareBytes Anti-malware to protect your computer in the future.

HDD Control creates the following files and folders

%UserProfile%\Desktop\HDD Control.lnk
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\Programs\HDD Control\HDD Control.lnk
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\Programs\HDD Control\Uninstall HDD Control.lnk
%Temp%\{RANDOM}.exe
%Temp%\{RANDOM}
%Temp%\{RANDOM}.dat

HDD Control creates the following registry keys and values

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run | {RANDOM}