window 7 recovery everytime I attempt to boot

markraymond11 · 31 May 2011

Hey,
Every time I start up my computer, Window 7 Recovery window pops up and starts scanning for errors on disk...then tries to fix them. After it decides it "failed to fix" many of the issues, it says I can buy an advanced module. After awhile, a window pops up that states "The system has detected a problem with one or more installed IDE/SATA hard disks. It is recommended that you restart the system." Also, "critical error" pops up out of the lower taskbar that states different things such as...."RAM memory usage is critically high. RAM memory failure" and "damaged hard drive clusters detected. Private data is at risk." and "Windows can't find hard disk space. Hard drive error."
Does anyone know what my problem is......better yet, how to fix it?
Thanks for any advice you may have!
-Mark

TCG · 31 May 2011

This sounds like one of the new fake AV/AS/Defrag tools running around in the wild. Are you running any kind of antivirus/antispyware software on your machine currently?

Based off of this statement:

markraymond11 said:

After it decides it "failed to fix" many of the issues, it says I can buy an advanced module.

...I suspect you are infected.

markraymond11 · 31 May 2011

I have mcAfee. I cannot close this window or do anything else in windows, also.

TCG · 31 May 2011

Yeah, sounds like you got a nice piece of malware on your machine. I would start by installing Malwarebytes and running a full system scan if you're able to. Try it from your account first. Usually these infections will be tied to the individual user account that was infected and can severely cripple anything from running in that account. If it's a good one, you may need to log in as a different user to install and run your first scan. Once that happens and you've removed what was found, you can then log in to your account to run a follow up scan.