[SOLVED] Safe way to plug in a old HDD?

[KawaTom]

In 2004/5 i had a gamer PC when i still lived home with my parents. It has been ther unused for 13 years now and i tok out the hdd and was thinking of pugging it in to my pc. But i used to download a lot from different sites and i was a young boy and the youxxx wasent born🙄🙄🥴🥴 so ther is most likely a tonn of ** thats not some thing i want to expose to my pc. So is ther any easy and safe way to look through the old HDD and copi what i find usefull like pictures and stuf like that?

 

[USAFRet]

A USB dock, and a Linux Live USB.

Obtain a dock like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Docking-Station-Support/dp/B0099TX7O4

Then, create a Linux USB you can boot from.
LinuxMint would work well.

Home - Linux Mint

Linux Mint is an elegant, easy to use, up to date and comfortable desktop operating system.

linuxmint.com

Boot from the Linux, then turn on the dock with that potentially hazardous drive in it.
Investigate as desired.

 

[KawaTom]

What if i disconnect all my hdd and then connect the old hdd and boot from the linux usb?

 

[USAFRet]

What if i disconnect all my hdd and then connect the old hdd and boot from the linux usb?

That works as well.
But then where would you copy your hopefully not infected photos to?

I have one of those docks, and it is invaluable for working with old, suspect drives like this.

 

[RolandJS]

Would running a barrage of strong current AV AM AS programs against the suspect HDD be helpful?

 

[USAFRet]

Would running a barrage of strong current AV AM AS programs against the suspect HDD be helpful?

Not really, because you can never really be sure.
A drive in the condition the OP states is assumed to be infected.

Extract those specific personal files you want (photo/doc/music/etc), copy those to elsewhere, run AV on only those....wipe the rest of the drive.

Trying to disinfect the whole drive contents is simply a waste of time. There is nothing valuable to be retrieved other than possibly the personal files.

 

[KawaTom]

Thanks for the answers. Im have no idea if its infected or not. But asuming since this pc came to life before youtube and Spotify e. t. c i can only expect that their are some noughty thigs living inside it. But this hdd is 13years or more since its been running and i Just want to try to see if i find something worth saving. My mobile phone has probebly way more storage then this hdd so its not to save the hdd. It s maybe 12gb or something like that. I was thinking of running it like suggested and then store the things worth keeping to a ext hdd ore something

 

[USAFRet]

Assume infected.
Proceed accordingly.

 

[stonecarver]

There is nothing valuable to be retrieved other than possibly the personal files.

Yup what he said.