topic Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!! in PCs & Accessories

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Simon_Clark — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:32:18 GMT

Sorry to relate but a program called Win Defrag has appeared from I know not where (kids at home perhaps?!) and says my HDD has 5 unfixed probs which can be fixed for a fee downloading the fix.

Obviously my suspicions are aroused that I have a bug/worm/virus/spoof whatever as surely this type of problem is dealt with by Sony's version of Windows?

However the Vaio Defrag app runs and there appear to be no problems.

Anyone seen this before? Grateful for advice

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Thalamus. — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:37:43 GMT

Hi Simon_Clark,

welcome to Questions & Answers..:smileyhappy:

Sounds like your Vaio's infected by some malware..:smileysad:

Have you run a malware/virus scan.?

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Simon_Clark — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:11:56 GMT

Thalamus,

New to using MacAfee, do you know where to start? It's been in Active mode since purchase so thought it wouldpick stuff up like this:smileyconfused:

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Simon_Clark — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:48:07 GMT

OK Thalamus, basically i'm running a full virus scan now, it seems that this program Win Defrag was downloaded today by accident.

The Win Defrag app gives the following message (shortened by me)

There are 5 errrors

1) Boot sector of HDD is damaged

2) There are bad sectors

3) Read speed of cluster is less than 500ms

4) HDD not responding to sys commands

5) 38% of HDD is unreadable

I'm presuming that this diagnosis is either false or if it is not then Vaio can handle it somewhere. Or are these "acceptable" conditions of the HDD operation?

I've tried to uninstall this Win Defrag program (it keeps appearing in order to prompt me to purchase the download to fix the above) but the uninstall doesn't work. The file for removal is in user/usrname/desktop/win defrag.lnk and gives an error message as follows:

Ox50000002

Local Disc C:/ is not accessible.Make sure HD is installed and connected correctly

Any ideas?

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Simon_Clark — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:25:17 GMT

Hi there Thalamus,

Full computer scan revealed no problems!!

Further investigation of Properties reveals that the above Win Defrag program claims to have been authored at Microsoft and describes itself as part of Microsoft Security Essentials User Interface 1.0.2498.0 and its executable is a numbered app 5117815.exe held in the Temp folder of a user location.

But there is no validaton certificate and no record of download..........

And I can't get rid of it by uninstall.

Q1: Has my HDD got a problem and does it need to be fixed by Vaio?

Q2: How do I uninstall the software that's on the drive (other than by paying for it, presumably downloading the last piece and then uninstalling the lot at the same time as asking for my money back? I can't believe microsoft would force anyone to do this so it must be malware of some sort.

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Catmambo — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 22:37:20 GMT

Or Defraggler - made by the same people behind the brilliant CCleaner.

thanks

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Thalamus. — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 22:40:50 GMT

I would advise against paying for Win Defrag as it is spyware.

DO NOT PURCHASE Win Defrag the main purpose of this malware is to get your money and it's likely to do more damage to your system files..

If franks solution does not help let us know and we can give you an alternative to try or failing that give instructions that may allow you to manually remove the infection, although this will be at your own risk..

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

-frank- — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 22:47:51 GMT

Hello Simon_Clark,

You could try downloading SUPERAntiSpyware from superantispyware.com and scanning again with that. There is a free edition.

Do not pay for Win Defrag as it is spyware.

Let us know how you get on.

Thanks.

Message was edited by: -frank- - Making myself clearer.

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Simon_Clark — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:30:11 GMT

Frank and Thalamus,

Many thanks for your support.

I definitely did not purchase the WinDefrag.

Having downloaded the SuperAntiSpware.com, cookies and rogue.windefrag were detected (what's wrong with McAfee?)

BUT

My attempts to remove/quarantine windefrag have failed which does not surprise me as SuperAnti's message was that they did not know what this spyware is or is capable of. Seems pretty serious.

I'm guessing my credit/debit card info on the usual pay sites is at risk although no transactions have taken place on this notebook since we discovered the problem 6 hours ago, may be some personal data in document folders as well.

I'm happy to try anything recommended including paying for the full version of SuperAnti. Is this likely to lead to cleaning up the disk? Or is there another suggestion?

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Simon_Clark — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:35:07 GMT

Just seen eduzzel's post about defraggler from cclean.........will it be any better?

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Thalamus. — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:45:11 GMT

I suspect SUPERAntiSpyware couldn't remove Win Defrag as there are probably processes associated with this malware still running in the background..

I have found this guide from Bleeping Computers that looks promising but I have not tried this myself so I'm afraid you'll need to decide for yourself if you want to attempt there suggestions..

Remove Win Defrag (Uninstall Guide)

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Simon_Clark — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:50:34 GMT

Are they credible? Presumably there is no choice, in order to remove the Spyware, it has to be done?

Data backups presumably will be compromised?

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Thalamus. — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:03:32 GMT

Are they credible?

They appear to be..

Site advisors links may help with your decision making..

McAfee siteadvisor

Norton Safeweb

Alternatively there are some sites with manual removal instructions, however following these are not without risks..

http://windowsprotection.net/remove-win-defrag-malware-windefrag-removal-guide/

http://blog.teesupport.com/how-to-guide-remove-win-defrag-windefrag-removal-guide/

http://antivirustech.com/win-defrag-virus-removal-as-a-must/

Also you could boot into safe mode and try a system restore to a point before the infection..

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Simon_Clark — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:11:11 GMT

Right, well, Bleeping Computer it is.......I've read the page, it'spretty comprehensive if insecure i.e it lets Rogue Trader know what its counter-measures are........fortunately I have another computer and can download the s/w to USB and print instructions from there.

This is all going to take some time so I will say good-bye for now.

Thanks to all 3 of you for helping me out of this hole, I'll be back in touch later with results:smileyplain:

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Thalamus. — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:12:47 GMT

This is all going to take some time so I will say good-bye for now.

Good luck ..

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Simon_Clark — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:17:08 GMT

Hello Thalamus,

I've run the bleeping computer s/w, it seems to have removed rogue.windefrag

Three issues have arisen

1) Catalyst Control Centre is reportedly corrupted in some way.

2) When clicking on IE7, a message is returned saying that my default search engine needs to be re-configured

and

3) A new bug called malware.trace has been detected that wasn't removed by bleeping computer.

I'm going to use SuperAntiSpyware to try and remove this

So far, though, no demands for money from win defrag!

Any thoughts about this?

Fingers crossed!

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Simon_Clark — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 03:04:51 GMT

Thalamus,

1) I quarantined and removed the malware.trace successfully.

2) The IE search provider default corruption won't go away, error message appears at start up

3) The Catalyst Control Centre error message is Host Not Working, this appears at startup

4) Visual C++ Rntime Library is also corrupted returning an error message at start-up

New Question : could these 3 items be related to the win defrag download and they just need re-installing? Anything to get rid of the error messages.

Other than these "side effects", the bleeping computer fix seems to have sorted the problem, I will run a full scan tomorrow (it's 3 AM here in England!)

Thanks to you guys again.

Why does Vaio Defrag say my HDD is OK and another Win Defrag app says pay to fix?!!

Thalamus. — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 13:29:06 GMT

Hi Simon,

the problem with malware infections is that you never know how many infections or what files have been altered and unfortunately the only way to know for sure that your system is clean is to do a system recovery..:smileysad:

However let's try and sort the remaining problems out if we can.

For IE7 try this..

Open the browser as normal then click Tools followed by Internet Option.

In the Internet option window click on the Advanced tab.

Finally click on the Reset button.

It may also be worth deleting your browser history, cookies, temporary Internet files, etc as well.

In the browser click Tools followed by Delete browser History.

In the Browser History window click on Delete All.

For Catalyst Control Centre error message do you have ATI graphics.?

If so have you tried reinstalling the graphic drivers.? What model Vaio do you have.?

Do you know what application is causing the Visual C++ Runtime Library error message, this is probably due to corruption in the registry file, not so easy to locate.

You could try running a registry cleaner such as CCleaner - http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

Download install and run both the windows and application cleaner

then click on the registry button and scan and fix..

But as I said at the beginning it may be worth doing a system recovery because then you know your system is clean..