Can viruses cause hard disk failure

When I wrote in a Microsoft forum that my attempt to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 bricked my motherboard, the expected cadre of ignorati claimed that was impossible. I've never seen that. Posted by: Jdavis 29 Oct Not a hard drive, but as the Iranians about the centrifuges in their reactors that the USA and Israel attacked with a virus -- spun themselves to death. Posted by: RandiO 29 Oct A PC tech telling an innocent customer that a virus was the DOA of a disk drive really is not such a bad thing; as this little white lie simply provides a means for the customer to be more aware of this thing called a virus.

Posted by: John 30 Oct I know this is not a Windows computer, but I in the early Y2K I remember reading about DirecTV sending a signal down that intentionally destroyed circuits actually burned in the DirecTV receivers that contained hacked smart cards.

I think we all know about Apple bricking all the iPhones that were repaired by unauthorized dealers. Apple lost a class action suit in doing so. I am not sure if the phones had physical damage or not, but were not repairable and had to be replaced. Posted by: Charles 30 Oct Posted by: Jene 30 Oct In the very, very early days of the PC, there were a couple of hardware weaknesses that could be used to produce physical damage.

These have been fixed. A program loop that moves the disk access arm rapidly to the extremes could cause the alignment to be damaged.

The original monochrome display could be burned out if the sweep circuit in the monochrome adapter were turned off, leaving direct current across the deflection coils. These vulnerabilities were fixed long ago. Posted by: BaliRob 30 Oct I concur with Bob's assertion that a Virus cannot damage a HD. Those that read this column will remember me bleating on about MS and its dangerous Updates causing havoc and causing problems for BOTH August and September - the second of which made it totally unable to get at the BIOS or System Restore and having been observed at switch-on trying to instal past Locked Screen without success.

I still do not have the courage to allow the October 'roll-up' to touch my machine which also was issued for the Defender problem not known about.

But only having unpaid support volunteers available to us - it is impossible to speak to any Firefox technician for an opinion and repair. Posted by: Michael Scholl 30 Oct There are people who use the term "hard dtive" to describe their desktop computers. Posted by: dbaSteve 31 Oct I had the flu and was so sick I wasn't thinking clearly. During the worst of my illness, I was working on my PC. Because I was sick, I dropped the hard drive and it broke.

In this case, a flu virus destroyed my hard drive. Posted by: BaliRob 01 Nov Thus no Language Pack needs to be incded in Add-Ons. Posted by: John 21 Jul Computer viruses most certainly can and do destroy hard drives. What the virus was intended to do is irrelevant.

Viruses are hacks, are not well tested, and usually poorly written. Some viruses have been seen to change the voltages on some motherboards that overclock the memory, USB ports, fans, or CPU.

Back several years ago one of my PC roasted while I was gone. It even started overwriting the page file. The machine was very hot. When I turned it off and turned it back on, it was done. Comments of a political nature are discouraged. Please limit your remarks to paragraphs. If you want to see your comment posted, pay attention to these items.

Accidents happen but a true mishap is not as simple as a human error. A mishap is one very unfortunate event which was not foreseen and hence things were not prepared accordingly.

This contributes to very rare cases but in all these cases, the hard drive is not protected. The hard drive recovery specialists use some very advanced techniques which can recover hard drive data even from hard disk which is totally broken internally or externally due to any of the hard drive failure reasons.

Top 10 Causes of Hard Drive Failure Knowing main causes of hard-drive failures is important because it will help you to prevent future hard drive failure. Power Issues Power issues are one of the most common issues behind hard drive failure.

Firmware Corruption Firmware is the permanent software programmed in a read-only memory which interacts with hardware directly. Water Damage Your computer, laptop or hard-drive is not water resistant. Virus or Faulty Software A software is capable to corrupt the system or data going inside hard-drive but they are not designed to do that. Unallocated Space Issue Sometimes, due to some flaws in the system or at the boot time, a portion of hard-drive storage space is lost.

Hardware Issues Hardware components wear out over time. Mechanical Flaws While most of the PC hardware are electronic devices, hard-drive is one component which is mechanical. Unforeseen Mishaps Accidents happen but a true mishap is not as simple as a human error. Tags: Hardware Troubleshooting. Robyn Matthews July 7, However, the problem is that they the installed application might cause more Hard Disk Failure ads and similar alerts.

Thus, you might waste money on futile programs which fail to provide a wanted solution. Make sure you get rid of this malware immediately. Reimage Intego will help you do that. The question how this malware broke through the security is of interest as well. If you think that the adware possesses complex technical characteristics helping it to evade any detection, we would like to dispel such speculations.

Hard Disk Failure hijack took place at the time of the installation of a new program. It is a common mistake to ignore the possibility that downloading programs from trusted websites exclude from possible cyber infections.

Though Skype, Java or Adobe Flash Player happen to be legitimate tools, they often bear unwanted attachments. After unmarking all unnecessary optional applications, initialize the installation guide. You can choose either manual or automatic elimination. If you opt for the first one, exercise attention and cautiousness when completing each step.

If you miss any essential detail, the probability to get infected by this malware remains. What is more, the virus might have spread its files across the registry, so locating them requires time and patience. If this method is not attractive, choose automatic Hard Disk Failure removal. The anti-spyware program will take care of the threat within a couple of minutes. It will remove Hard Disk Failure and all its related files without bigger efforts.

Remember that the essential factor of the effectively functioning program is updating it frequently. You may remove virus damage with a help of Reimage Intego.

SpyHunter 5 Combo Cleaner and Malwarebytes are recommended to detect potentially unwanted programs and viruses with all their files and registry entries that are related to them. To fully remove an unwanted app, you need to access Application Support , LaunchAgents, and LaunchDaemons folders and delete relevant files:.

If this solution failed to help you, you need to use an advanced Edge reset method.