How to remove Smart HDD virus

Smart HDD is a new malicious program pretending to be a legitimate one. It will detect numerous false problems and display various critical errors alerts on the computer in order to trick you into thinking your computer has a lot of serious problems. SmartHDD will state that all you have to do in order to clean your machine is purchase the software. Remember that the program is unable to detect and fix any problems, so do not pay for its full version! The fake software should be removed as soon as possible!

Smart HDD from the same family of malware as HDD Rescue, HDD Repair, etc. It is promoted and distributed with the help of trojans or other malicious software. Moreover, cyber criminals may also distribute it on social networks (Twitter, My Space, Facebook, etc) and spam emails. Please be careful when opening attachments and downloading files or otherwise you can end up with a rogue program on your computer.

Immediately after launch, Smart HDD will be configured to run automatically when your computer starts. Once started, it will simulate a system scan and detect 11 critical problems, e.g. “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. Next, SmartHDD will prompt you to pay for its full version before it “repairs” your machine of the problems. Remember, the scan might look legitimate but, in reality, it is just simulated and is unable to detect any problems! Thus, don`t pay for the Smart HDD, simply ignore the false scan results.

While Smart HDD is running, it will display various fake warnings and notifications from your Windows taskbar. The text of 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.

Moreover, it will block all Windows legitimate applications from running. Important to note, if you attempt to run a program enough times it will eventually work. The following warning will be shown when you attempt to run a program:

Windows detected a hard drive problem.
A hard drive error occurred while starting the application

Of course, all of these alerts are a fake and supposed to scare you into thinking your computer is in danger. You should ignore all of them!

As you can see, all SmartHDD does is fake! Be sure you keep away from this fake software and never install it on your computers. If your PC has been infected with the rogue, then ignore all it gives you and follow the removal instructions below in order to remove Smart HDD and any associated malware from your computer for free.

Use the following instructions to remove Smart HDD infection

Click Start, Type in Search field %allusersprofile% and press Enter (if you use the Windows XP, then click Start, Run and type a command in Open field). It will open a contents of “ProgramData” folder (“All Users” folder for Windows XP).

Smart HDD hides all files and folders, so you need to change some settings and thus be able to see your files and folders again. Click Organize, select ”Folder and search options”, open View tab (if you use Windows XP, then open Tools menu, Folder Options, View tab). Select “Show hidden files and folders” option, uncheck “Hide extensions for known file types”, uncheck “Hide protected operating files” and click OK button.

Open “Application Data” folder. This step only for Windows XP, skip it if you use Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Now you will see Smart HDD associated files as shown below.

Basically, there will be files named with a series of numbers or letter (e.g. 2636237623.exe or JtwSgJHkjkj.exe), right click to it and select Rename (don`t rename any folders). Type any new name (123.exe) and press Enter.
You can to rename only files with .exe extension. Its enough to stop this malware from autorunning.

Reboot your computer.
 

Now you can unhide all files and folders that has been hidden by Smart HDD. Click Start, type in Search field cmd and press Enter. Command console “black window” opens. Type cd \ and press Enter. Type attrib -h /s /d and press Enter. Close Command console.

If your Desktop is empty, then click Start, type in Search field %UserProfile%\desktop and press Enter. It will open a contents of your desktop.

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. 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 that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected for start Smart HDD removal process. When disinfection is completed, a log will open in Notepad. Reboot your computer.

Smart HDD may be bundled with TDSS trojan-rootkit, so you should run TDSSKiller to detect and remove this infection.

Download TDSSKiller from here and unzip to your desktop. Open TDSSKiller folder. Right click to tdsskiller and select rename. Type a new name (123myapp, for example). Press Enter. Double click the TDSSKiller icon. You will see a screen similar to the one below.

TDSSKiller

Click Start Scan button to start scanning Windows registry for TDSS trojan. If it is found, then you will see window similar to the one below.

TDSSKiller – Scan results

Click Continue button to remove TDSS trojan.

If you can`t to download or run TDSSKiller, then you need to use Combofix. Download Combofix. Close any open browsers. Double click on combofix.exe and follow the prompts. If ComboFix will not run, please rename it to myapp.exe and try again!

Your system should now be free of the Smart HDD virus. If you need help with the instructions, then post your questions in our Spyware Removal forum.

Smart HDD 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: 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.

Smart HDD creates the following files and folders

%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\GDIPFONTCACHEV1.DAT
%CommonAppData%\[RANDOM]
%CommonAppData%\~[RANDOM]
%UserProfile%\Desktop\Smart HDD.lnk
%CommonAppData%\[RANDOM].exe
%Temp%\smtmp\
%Temp%\smtmp\1
%Temp%\smtmp\2
%Temp%\smtmp\3
%Temp%\smtmp\4

Note: %CommonAppData% is C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data (for Windows XP/2000) or C:\ProgramData (for Windows 7/Vista)

Smart HDD creates the following registry keys and values

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\INTERNET EXPLORER\MAIN\USE FORMSUGGEST = Yes
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION\INTERNET SETTINGS\CERTIFICATEREVOCATION = 0
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION\INTERNET SETTINGS\WARNONBADCERTRECVING = 0
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION\INTERNET SETTINGS\WARNONZONECROSSING = 0
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION\INTERNET SETTINGS\ZONES\3\1601 = 0
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION\WINTRUST\TRUST PROVIDERS\SOFTWARE PUBLISHING\STATE = 146944
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet\CONTROL\SESSION MANAGER\PENDINGFILERENAMEOPERATIONS = \??\%CommonAppData%\[RANDOM].exe

Smart HDD removal – Video instructions

Smart HDD is basically clone of Windows XP Repair, so you can use the video guide below to remove this malware.