HDD Rescue (HDDRescue) Virus Removal Guide

Virus Type: Rogue Security Application
Threat Level: 8 / 10

HDD Rescue (HDDRescue) is a new fake defragmenter program. HDD Rescue attempts to mimic other defragmenter programs in order to make it seem like a legitimate program; however, it is fake program. HDD Rescue is part of a line of fake defragmenter programs; other fake defragmenter programs include HDD Scan and HDD Diagnostic. HDD Rescue is generally installed through the use of a trojan horse, which is generally downloaded while browsing the internet. HDD Rescue is generally installed without user permission. HDD Rescue will display alerts to scare the user into purchasing HDD Rescue, which include the following:

Hard drive doesn’t respond to system commands – Critical Error
37% of HDD space is unreadable – Critical Error
Bad sectors on hard drive or damaged file allocation table – Critical Error
Boot sector of the hard drive disk is damaged – Critical Error
Drive C initializing error – Critical Error
Files placement on hard drive is not optimized. Defragmentation is required – Performance Issue
Read time of hard drive clusters less than 500 ms – Critical Error

Below is our recommended removal tool for HDD Rescue. The removal tool has been rated 5 cows out of 5 by Tucows and was previously CNET’s Editor’s Choice. Feel free to download it below.

If you are unable to run the removal tool, or are unable to run any programs in general, you may need to stop the processes associated with HDD Rescue with task manager. If task manager has been blocked by HDD Rescue, try using Process Explorer.

When attepting to open a program, HDD Rescue will generally display “a hard drive error occurred while starting the application” and block the application from starting. Generally, if you repetitively attempt to open the program, HDD Rescue will be unable to block the program and it will eventually open.

It is recommended to use safe mode when removing the virus because HDD Rescue will generally not be able to load in safe mode. To enter safe mode, restart the computer and press F8 multiple times before the Windows screen to bring up the boot options.

Boot Menu

The safe mode with networking option will allow the user to be able to use the internet in safe mode. HDD Rescue can be removed by using the

or by manually removing the virus. Click here to learn more about safe mode.

View HDD Rescue Files
View HDD Rescue Keys

Manual HDD Rescue Removal – In order to manually remove HDD Rescue, the processes associated with HDD Rescue must be stopped, the files associated with the processes must be removed, and the registry entries must be corrected to the previous state before HDD Rescue entered the computer.

Important: Before attempting to manually remove HDD Rescue, we recommend that the user read through comments posted by other users on how they removed specific fake antivirus programs since many fake antivirus programs are similar. These comments can be found by clicking here. These comments may provide additional information which may be useful in removing HDD Rescue. However, please use discretion since these specific comments pertain to other fake antivirus programs.

Stop HDD Rescue Processes (Learn How To Do This)
[random].exe

Remove HDD Rescue Files (Learn How To Do This)
C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\temp\[random].exe

Remove HDD Rescue Startup Entry (Learn How To Do This)
[random].exe

Common Questions -
1. What is a computer virus? (Click Here To View)
2. How did I get this computer virus? (Click Here To View)
3. What common symptoms show that my computer may be infected? (Click Here To View)
4. What are some antivirus and antispyware programs which I can use to remove viruses and spyware? (Click Here To View)

If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to comment below. If you need any help with any of the steps, please don’t hesitate to comment below. We recommend that you follow our safety tips so that you can keep your computer clean Please Click Here to View Our Safety Tips.

Your feedback is very highly valued by others so please feel free to comment below. Please feel free to share a solution that you may have used to remove HDD Rescue.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 11th, 2023 at 6:19 pm and is filed under Malware Removal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “HDD Rescue (HDDRescue) Virus Removal Guide”

dave December 12th, 2023 at 12:35 am

I have borrowed a laptop from my university and this virus is now running on it! I can’t download and install these antimalware tools because im not the admin. and that random.exe file is not coming up in the task manager. Please help, i seriously dont know what to do!
thanks

K December 12th, 2023 at 7:06 am

I went through and removed everything manually, but the icon is still in my task bar at the bottom right of my screen and flashing speech bubbles saying “Critical Error: Can’t find Hard Drive” etc… If i right click on the icon, it redownloads with a new series of random numbers for me to go through and remove.
Please help!

Jon December 12th, 2023 at 4:44 pm

@Dave – The filename will be a bunch of random letters followed by a .exe since it is an executable file

@K – The virus is probably redownloading itself through a trojan horse. You will have to find that file; it is probably hiding in the temp folder.

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