Suddenly, after startup, an alarming warning message appeared, ostensibly from the program "HDD Scan". It told me my hard drive was ill, and I stood a good chance of loosing all my data. A warning message also appeared as a 'baloon' from my system tray, and kept on appearing as I went along.
As I was not aware of having installed something called "HDD Scan", I wanted to first find out more, so I started firefox - only to get the message that the hdd couldn't be read. In fact, I couldn't start any program at all; especially not any of the bunch of malware detectors I have! Luckily, there was just one exception: i could start HijackThis. It showed me some suspect entries (I'd been wrestling with an infection recently, so I knew the valid entries by heart) and removed them. This solved the problem - at least for the time being.
Since then, I downloaded and used a genuine version of HDD scan, and, as I expected, nothing is wrong with my hdd.
Yet, it was a close call: unbelievable how this thing disabled absolutely everything. What if Hijackthis hadn't started either?
From this experience, and from a bit of websurfing, I conclude there is some quite dangerous malware purporting to be 'HDD Scan'. Maybe a warning is in order?
Mabel

You need a better anit-virus program which will not allow this stuff into your system. KAV is the best on the market you should spend the few dollars it asks for an install it on your system. You will be time and money ahead in the long run on this one.

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Iorana Haraharaini