[SOLVED] HDD making pc boot really slow and lagging

[Lucionoso]

Hello everyone, hope you doing good, so here is my problem.
Yesterday i was playing a cracked game so i had to turn off antivirus, i have played this game with no problems on my computer all week then yesterday my pc began laging and windows explorer froze i had to shut down the pc with the power button, then i tried to turn it on again, it stayed booting for like 10 minutes, i precise that i have windows on my ssd and i usually boot in 20 sec, the game was on this hdd im talking about, so pc booted i ran CHKDSK for the hdd in question then my pc got working good again so i decided to turn off my pc unplug hdd, and now everything is fine except that i need this hdd there is a lot of documents in it, game saves, etc i dont want to format it until i now that there is no other solution so i need your help, thanks

 

[mitch074]

Hello everyone, hope you doing good, so here is my problem.
Yesterday i was playing a cracked game so i had to turn off antivirus, i have played this game with no problems on my computer all week then yesterday my pc began laging and windows explorer froze i had to shut down the pc with the power button, then i tried to turn it on again, it stayed booting for like 10 minutes, i precise that i have windows on my ssd and i usually boot in 20 sec, the game was on this hdd im talking about, so pc booted i ran CHKDSK for the hdd in question then my pc got working good again so i decided to turn off my pc unplug hdd, and now everything is fine except that i need this hdd there is a lot of documents in it, game saves, etc i dont want to format it until i now that there is no other solution so i need your help, thanks

Well, you've earned your right to reformat your PC and start anew. The cracked game contained a virus, which delivered its payload, and then all its friends came to celebrate with it, and are now brooding on your PC, corrupting files, installing porn servers, botnet remote controls and all these fun little things. Congratulations!
And don't even try a simple reinstall without reformatting : that won't work. You need to get this drive out of your PC, scan it on another machine to clean it up and hopefully save your files, then reformat and reinstall anew.
If you're unlucky enough, that thing also corrupted your BIOS and HDD firmware, and you're up to buying a new mobo and HDD.

 

[Lucionoso]

Thank you for the reply, so you're telling me to reinstalle windows and reformat all my pc, or can i just take the hdd that has the virus out of my pc and keep using the machine?

 

[USAFRet]

Thank you for the reply, so you're telling me to reinstalle windows and reformat all my pc, or can i just take the hdd that has the virus out of my pc and keep using the machine?

You'll need to reformat the whole system.
There are now all sorts of unknown nasties in there.

 

[mitch074]

Thank you for the reply, so you're telling me to reinstalle windows and reformat all my pc, or can i just take the hdd that has the virus out of my pc and keep using the machine?

I'm telling you, if you want to recover some files you'll need another 'clean' PC, scan the HDD fully first to kill the nasties, recover your files, then reformat the drive, and reinstall. Use a proper antivirus to scan it (Kaspersky is my recommendation, forget the Windows antivirus).
And pray that among those nasties you don't have a UEFI/BIOS virus nor a HDD firmware virus. Yes, they exist, no, without dedicated hardware you can't afford, you can't get rid of them and you'll have to buy either a new motherboard, or a new HDD, or both.

 

[PrinceTexasLoaf]

That's what pretty much happens when you install cracked games, you're taking a HUGE risk doing it....
Let me uh guess your save files are also for cracked games since literally any recent game saves your progress online.
Unless you emulate?

I thought this forum didn't like cracked things.

Malwarebytes is my recommendation.

 

[neojack]

tips for getting games for cheap :

• install the origin client. from time to time, they offer free games
• install steam and check for the specials
• check humble bundle's bundles. they also have a monthly plan where you pay per month and get like 10 games each month

on the gray zone you can get cheap steam keys on ebay of other sites like cdkeys. they come from fishy source but at least keys are real and you won't need cracks

Cracks were great like 10-15 years ago (i remember using clone CD to copy my friend's games and all), but now it's just too dangerous.

My son was born yesterday, yet we cannot go home because the hospital was hacked and all data is gone and it's a mess.
so yeah cybercriminality is a really serious thing now and has impacts in real life ! don't take risks.
countries North Koreas have specialized Cyber Warfare units, their goals is to wreak havoc in the world and get money by any means possible.

Also, before installing any program that you're not absolutely sure about, make a full backup of your system.
Macrium free is a good software for that. it's legal and free.