Virus corrupt my HDD?

[pmsf]

Hey all,

I had my PC running Windows Vista and all of a sudden things were lagging badly so I went ahead and rebooted my system. Afterwards the system could no longer detect the hard drive. Fiddled around with the BIOS (turned off raid) and still no go. I went ahead and put it in an enclosure and plugged it into my laptop.

My laptop started lagging too once the old HDD was connected to my Windows 7 laptop. A reboot of my laptop connected to the enclosure resulted in my Avast turning off its real time virus protection and its update feature. Freaked out, and unable to "safely remove the device" with Windows, I just shut down the enclosure. Instantly my laptop stopped lagging.

Is this a result of a virus? I did a throrough scan with Avast afterwards and nothing showed up, is this because the virus is good at hiding or that my shutting off the enclosure prevented the virus from spreading? Could this virus be specific to Windows Vista and not 7? What can I do to retrieve my data without corrupting the PCs I plug it into? Thank you for all your help!

 

[jesman1985]

honestly.. that'd scare me too.. if somebody else has advice on what to do go ahead and try it.. but me myself.. id reboot my whole system and install windows vista all over again.. (if you have a copy) if not.. get windows 7.. i doubt the virus corrupted you whole HDD.. but before you do that why not try restoring your pc to previous settings.. it might have been something you downloaded.. or something you enabled.. who knows? but a system restore should work.. if not.. install the operating system again.. its a little drastic but it'll solve it..

 

[bobalazs]

if it turns off your antivirus, thats not a good sign... :F
however could be hardware error as well that causes lockups.
Avast imho is not really good antivirus, avira is better.
but reboot in safe mode and do a system scan with malwarebytes first.
if still nono, then go with the format reinstall.

 

[jimsmithusa123]

hello friends

i am new to this forum. i am jim smith and i am web designer,
i want to know, my hard disk is affect by virus . every time my hard disk stop working,.
i do not know why it is happening.
please anybody told me the reason and solution

 

[bobalazs]

hard disk stop working...
Hard disk does not stop working, the pc does... :
AND dont hijack, start your own thread...

 

[EmilyJackT]

I have faced same problem,my HDD already damaged

 

[bc4]

I had the same thing happen to me at work (running XP sp3).

It turned out not to be a virus, just a dying Hard Drive. Whenever the drive was connected (either through IDE or with a USB enclosure), the PC was super slow and un-responsive.

I'm not saying that it isn't a virus, but it is probably best to start with a new drive. Hopefully, you made recovery media so you can just do a fresh install

 

[jesman1985]

pmsf let us all know how it goes.. hopefully the system restore or a fresh install did it..

 

[aford10]

Verify that there aren't any hard drive errors.
start-->run-->chkdsk /r <--A pop up will ask you if you want to schedule it on next restart. Say yes. It will scan for errors, and try to repair any it finds.

Verify system files are good.
start-->run-->sfc /scannow <--You may need a windows disc. It will scan your system files for errors, and replace any damaged ones.

Run through the malware guide in my signature.

 

[bobalazs]

+1 aford10
plus usually the hdd ide or sata cable gets broken too, so might give it a shot with a changed cable. A dying hard drive or wrong partitioning can cause symptoms of a dead hdd.