Trouble with USB powered 2.5" SATA adapter

[piffelpop]

I have a 2.5" HDD from my old laptop, which has some serious backdoor malware on it, but I need to retrieve some files from it. I want to connect it to my old PC running Windows XP (because I don't care about infecting this old beast) so I can "safely" access the data and then wipe the drive. I bought an adapter, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to use it. The adapter is the type with 2 (two) USB ends, presumably one for power and the other for connecting. I can't tell which connection is which, or which ports to plug either of them into. Also, any other steps needed to access the data are beyond me, so if someone can help me get it connected properly, then can I just boot from it? or just access it from the PCs OS and pull out the files I need? NOTE: I had no trouble connecting it to a friends notebook when we first got the cable, but he immediately was forced to wipe his own system, (and punch me in the jaw) because it infected his notebook. So I know the HDD and the cable work, I just need guidance using them with this old Dell that I keep running offline. I have included pictures of the HDD, the cable, and the PCs ports. PLEASE HELP!!!

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

It doesn't matter which USB plug goes in to which port to get it working, but obviously use USB 3.0 or 3.1 ports if possible.

You don't boot from it.

You boot in to Windows XP on your old PC in the normal way.
Then connect the external laptop drive and Windows should detect it and give it a new drive-letter in Windows XP's Explorer. The new drive letter represents the laptop drive.

Double-click on it to see it's contents.
Use drag-and-drop or copy/paste to get data off it.

When done, scan the copied files with antivirus and antimalware to check they are clean.

 

[piffelpop]

It doesn't matter which USB plug goes in to which port to get it working, but obviously use USB 3.0 or 3.1 ports if possible.

You boot in to Windows XP on your old PC in the normal way.
Then connect the external laptop drive and Windows should detect it and give it a new drive-letter in Windows XP's Explorer. The new drive letter represents the laptop drive.
.

Next Question: What might prevent the drive from showing up? No matter what I do, XP doesn't seem to detect it...does it matter that the laptop drive has a different OS? Is there perhaps some other, more advanced method to detect a drive that is not recognized as it should be?

 

[hang-the-9]

Boot your laptop with that drive using a anti-virus rescue disk, Avira has one that I use. Scan the drive.

Once that is done, make a Linux Live disk (I use Knoppix for this most often), that will boot the system and you can see your drive. Connect another USB drive to the system, copy your files from that. Hook up that drive to a computer, scan it again, Malwarebytes is good and has a free version. Once that scan is clean, copy your files to wherever you want.