Do you keep permanently receiving messages that say “Device initialization failed”? Well, the chances are that these are fake notices generated by Smart HDD scam (rogue program). This malware enters your system in a hidden (secret) manner and almost immediately ruins your file and folder settings by setting up the hidden attribute to them. In fact, some icons, shortcuts and quick launch items are even deleted, even though the backup copy of them is saved by the virus and transferred to some specially designated folder (known as “smtmp”). It is peculiar to this malware program that it displays many fake system error notices, similar to the one like “Device initialization failed”. In fact, there are many other bogus warnings that warn of same unreal system problems.
No doubt, to receive the message like “Device initialization failed” can be quite scary for those users that aren’t aware of the fact that Smart HDD, the originator of such bogus error notices, is the malware program. Well, this is why this post is prepared – to let you know about the real intentions of this scam. It wants to persuade you in the fact that the problems it reports are real, and then the virus will try to prompt you into buying its useless licensed version (so-called activation key). But, as you probably understand by now, this hoax is not capable of identifying real threats.
So, when you see messages like “Device initialization failed” you must be careful. If they are produced by the malware program like Smart HDD you need to ignore them all completely and take all the necessary measures to delete this rogue on time and to restore your missing data as described below.
Fake HDD error screenshot:
Guidelines to restore your system after fake HDD (rogue) program:
- Guide to remove malicious (virus) application that causes “Seek Error – Sector not found” notice to appear – http://www.deletevirus.net/remove-smart-hdd-virus/
- Guide to restore your missing (hidden) files and folders manually – http://www.deletevirus.net/how-to-restore-files-missing-because-of-virus/
