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

[Simon_Clark]

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

[Thalamus.]

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)

[Simon_Clark]

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?

[Thalamus.]

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..

[Simon_Clark]

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:

[Thalamus.]

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

Good luck ..

[Simon_Clark]

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!

[Simon_Clark]

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.

[Thalamus.]

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..