HDD Salvage from old pc help ?

[naseem142]

Hi,

I have a 1TB WD Black i bought for my old PC that ran an intel G965 motherboard i think ? with a pentium something.. , but eventually the motherboard died and all the hardware were outdated expect a 430W corsair psu and the hard drive that i'd like to re-use.

Is there any risk of using that HDD on my new PC at all?

Thanks!

 

[JaredDM]

What exactly do you mean by "risk"? It's not going to damage your new system's hardware if that's what you're thinking. Risk of viruses...maybe.

 

[Shaun o]

No risk at all naseem.

As long as the old drive you have is a Sata based drive.
And your motherboard supports Sata devices.

One thing though, the old drive may be an IDE drive if very old and new motherboards don`t come with IDE hard drive connectors of the 40 pin type used for them.

So I would check, the option there would be to buy either a pci based add in card that supports Ide drives and there connection.

Or a Pci-e x4 version expansion card that will support connection of old Ide interface devices like hard drives that use the 40 pin cable connection.

If it`s not a problem and the drive out of the old system is a Sata based hard drive.
Before you plug it into your new system make sure you have antivirus software running.
Just in case the drive has a virus ir something on it to stop it infecting your new system.

I presume your just going to add it to the new system and format the drive and use it as extra storage space.
That`s perfectly fine and should be easy to do with little problems at all for you.

 

[JaredDM]

No risk at all naseem.

As long as the old drive you have is a Sata based drive.
And your motherboard supports Sata devices.

One thing though, the old drive may be an IDE drive if very old and new motherboards don`t come with IDE hard drive connectors of the 40 pin type used for them.

So I would check, the option there would be to buy either a pci based add in card that supports Ide drives and there connection.

Or a Pci-e x4 version expansion card that will support connection of old Ide interface devices like hard drives that use the 40 pin cable connection.

If it`s not a problem and the drive out of the old system is a Sata based hard drive.
Before you plug it into your new system make sure you have antivirus software running.
Just in case the drive has a virus ir something on it to stop it infecting your new system.

I presume your just going to add it to the new system and format the drive and use it as extra storage space.

He said it's a WD Black 1TB, so I'm pretty certain it's SATA.

 

[naseem142]

No risk at all naseem.

As long as the old drive you have is a Sata based drive.
And your motherboard supports Sata devices.

One thing though, the old drive may be an IDE drive if very old and new motherboards don`t come with IDE hard drive connectors of the 40 pin type used for them.

So I would check, the option there would be to buy either a pci based add in card that supports Ide drives and there connection.

Or a Pci-e x4 version expansion card that will support connection of old Ide interface devices like hard drives that use the 40 pin cable connection.

If it`s not a problem and the drive out of the old system is a Sata based hard drive.
Before you plug it into your new system make sure you have antivirus software running.
Just in case the drive has a virus ir something on it to stop it infecting your new system.

I presume your just going to add it to the new system and format the drive and use it as extra storage space.
That`s perfectly fine and should be easy to do with little problems at all for you.

I just had a lot of troubles with that PC , formatting constantly due to windows not booting and a lot of blue screens until the PC gave up and i was worried that it could have been from the HDD but it seems less likely since the mobo was the only dead part at that point, Assuming it is the source of all this trouble.

I was just paranoid that's all , and yes it does use sata cable since it's new.

But one more question , how can i check the files on that HDD without risking viruses leaking onto the new system? I would like to format it , but i just want to check if there are any remaining important files.

Thanks!

 

[jsmithepa]

But one more question , how can i check the files on that HDD without risking viruses leaking onto the new system? I would like to format it , but i just want to check if there are any remaining important files.

Can get infected only if you execute something from that drive. Execute=run an .exe file. Browsing doesn't do anything. Now virus can also transmit by just opening a word document, an exel etc. So after you have copied everything that you need to save to a folder, do a viruscan of that folder to be safe.