Using old external HDD on a new computer safely?

[morgwic]

Hey,

I recently bought a new PC. On my old computer I had an external hard drive that uses USB. Over the years the old computer seemed to slow down, even though I had antivirus installed, but then again I may have downloaded apps such as or similar to photoshop, sony vegas etc. through untrusted sources, which could've possibly infected my PC.

Now, I would like to use the old HDD on my new PC, but I'm afraid it will infect the new computer. I know wiping the HDD, after removing my current one and booting an OS from a flash drive would be safe, but this is not what I want. The HDD has certain files that I would like to get access to on my new PC, but without a risk of infection, is this possible?

Also, I stumbled upon an article that said it might be safe if I disable something called autorun is this true and how would I do that?

TL;DR: How to use old, possibly infected external HDD (usb) on a new PC safely? (w/o formatting)

Thanks in advance

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

There are umpteen causes of system slowdown over time, and only rarely is it caused by malware activity, especially if AV software is installed & kept up-to-date.

I feel certain you'll be able to plug your external HDD in to your new PC with no risk whatsoever, I've been using the same external HDDs (3 of them) on four different computers now for several years, none of the HDDs (both internal & external) have ever been infected.

Just one tip, boot in to Windows first, then connect the external. This is simply to avoid any booting issues or boot delay.


You can edit Windows autoplay settings in Control Panel >> AutoPlay

 

[morgwic]

There are umpteen causes of system slowdown over time, and only rarely is it caused by malware activity, especially if AV software is installed & kept up-to-date.

I feel certain you'll be able to plug your external HDD in to your new PC with no risk whatsoever, I've been using the same external HDDs (3 of them) on four different computers now for several years, none of the HDDs (both internal & external) have ever been infected.

Just one tip, boot in to Windows first, then connect the external. This is simply to avoid any booting issues or boot delay.


You can edit Windows autoplay settings in Control Panel >> AutoPlay

Thanks, but I'm still a little worried, due to the torrents I've downloaded in the past. Do you think its worth disabling Autorun aswell in addition to Autoplay? I found an article that has tutorial on how to do that, but it's a bit complicated, and I don't know what the adverse effects of disabling it are. On the article they say:

"It's important to disable both AutoPlay and AutoRun, as they have different functions: AutoPlay pops up a dialog window prompting a user to do something with inserted media, whereas AutoRun simply looks for an INF file and starts executing it to install software. Both are risky."