or just kill the HDD and buy another one which takes 20X less time
You could always do that, but why spend money when it's not necessary? I'd love to trash my computer and purchase some parts so I can build my own, but...why? This one works fine, I spend too much time on the PC already, not to mention having a better performing computer for me to do more. Anyways...
Try running "Spybot Search & Destroy", it'll do the trick.