HDD Doctor Recovery

HDD Doctor Recovery should not be mistaken for disk defragmentation software. Although HDD Doctor Recovery poses as a useful tool, it is malware, and HDD Doctor Recovery uses scare tactics to get PC users to purchase worthless software licenses.

Be careful when dealing with disk defragmenting programs, because fakes like HDD Doctor Recovery frequently use names that are very much alike to the names of legitimate applications. In this case, there are several different real programs called HD Doctor, and the con-artists behind the HDD Doctor Recovery scam are counting on their malware being confused for the real thing. However, no real system utility would behave the way that HDD Doctor Recovery does.

Symptoms Caused by HDD Doctor Recovery

HDD Doctor Recovery is installed by a Trojan, and the Trojan may be hidden on almost any malicious site, or in any malicious advertisement. For example, common Trojan hiding spots are fake free online scans, downloads of program updates from third-party sites, and files downloaded from peer-to-peer file sharing networks. Without proper, updated anti-virus software, the Trojan can download to your computer without your consent. Once on board, the Trojan takes care of setting up HDD Doctor Recovery. HDD Doctor Recovery will be configured to run when Windows starts, and the next time you start your computer, HDD Doctor Recovery will be active.

HDD Doctor Recovery follows a very common pattern for a fake defragmenting program, beginning with fake scans. When Windows starts and HDD Doctor Recovery runs, it will open HDD Doctor Recovery's bogus interface and run a fake scan of your hard drives. The interface is made to look realistic, with several tabs, Windows styling and fonts, and an area at the bottom that says that the "Advanced Module" is not active. When the fake scans are complete, the result is the same every time – HDD Doctor Recovery will present a list of serious errors that HDD Doctor Recovery claims to have found with the hard drive and other system components. HDD Doctor Recovery will prompt you to pay to get a license in order activate HDD Doctor Recovery's Advanced Module and repair the errors. HDD Doctor Recovery will take you to a payment site, where you can enter your credit card information in order to buy a license for HDD Doctor Recovery, but there aren't any licenses to be had. HDD Doctor Recovery is completely fake, and utterly useless, no matter how much money you pour into HDD Doctor Recovery.

While you are using your computer, HDD Doctor Recovery will do a few other things to try to scare you into thinking that you need to purchase a license. HDD Doctor Recovery will generate frequent error messages that say various scary things about your computer, like that your hard drive couldn't be found, or the hard drive has bad sectors, or the internal temperature of your computer is dangerously high. You will also see error messages from HDD Doctor Recovery when you try to run other programs, and these error messages will say that the program you were trying to access couldn't be run due to a hard drive error. In case you try to go online for help, HDD Doctor Recovery can also cause your browser to redirect you to malicious sites. HDD Doctor Recovery may even try to trick you into believing that something is truly wrong with your computer, by causing some folders to appear to be empty.

Background Information on HDD Doctor Recovery, and Related Malware

HDD Doctor Recovery is part of a scam that has been occurring since the fall of 2010. The list of malware applications that are closely related to HDD Doctor Recovery contains literally dozens of names. So HDD Doctor Recovery is only superficially different from HDD Rescue, Smart HDD, My Disk, and Good Memory – to name only a few. All of these fake system tools can be traced to an origin in Russia. The upshot to the extreme similarity between HDD Doctor Recovery and all of these other threats is that it is very likely that HDD Doctor Recovery can be temporarily disabled using the same code that disables the others: 0973467457475070215340537432225. Keep in mind that this registration code can only disable HDD Doctor Recovery temporarily, at best, so that you can use real security software to remove HDD Doctor Recovery.