PC 2 PC

Peterpoose · 11 Feb 2011 at 13:16

Hi I hope this is in the right place.

I get my new PC today, my old PC can only be started in safe mode and im pretty sure its full of viruses as lots of people used it. Now I have important stuff on the D drive partition. I have an external HD and a stick which probably have viruses.

Is there a safe way to get the info from the infected PC onto the possibly infected exterior HD or will I run the risk of infecting my new PC? And if so can you recommend any programmes to clear the external HD of viruses and the new PC? So its safe to. get the I.do.

Thanks a lot folks!

wakayoda · 11 Feb 2011 at 13:19

Do a virus scan on everything perhaps?

Peterpoose · 11 Feb 2011 at 13:21

wakayoda said:
Do a virus scan on everything perhaps?

I have I'm just wondering if there would be some risk Anyhows as its quite badly infected and the anti virus may not pick everything up ?

shadow_boxer · 11 Feb 2011 at 13:23

Microsoft security essentials 2.0, update database and do a full scan. MalwareBytes download & full scan. Make sure windows firewall is on also. Scan the externals too. Then if possible you could remove everything from the USB stick onto your old PC, fortmat it and then copy it over (once all the above has been done).

Peterpoose · 11 Feb 2011 at 13:27

shadow_boxer said:
Microsoft security essentials 2.0, update database and do a full scan. MalwareBytes download & full scan. Make sure windows firewall is on also. Scan the externals too. Then if possible you could remove everything from the USB stick onto your old PC, fortmat it and then copy it over (once all the above has been done).

Great thank you.

shadow_boxer · 11 Feb 2011 at 13:30

lol oops wrong way around..copy anything you want from the USB then format it!

El_Watcher · 11 Feb 2011 at 15:05

You may want to turn off autorun in Windows as well, just in case one of the viruses has overwritten the autorun file with programs to infect before scan completes.

Buchanan0204 · 11 Feb 2011 at 15:12

Personally I would take anything off the external HDD that isn't needed. Format it.

Then boot into a Live CD on of Linux. Copy all the files from D: onto the now formatted external HDD.

Have MSE running and updated on a pc, hook up the external HDD to it, scan with MSE before opening any of the copied files.

However, if you know what the files are... i.e. you created them, word documents etc. Then chances are they will be virus free 99.9% of the time.

bigmike20vt · 11 Feb 2011 at 16:06

buchanan you beat me to it, get the important iles you need off on a linux machine, blap the rest and then scan for viruses on those important files, whilst formatting the rest.

Peterpoose · 11 Feb 2011 at 16:24

Thanks guys, yes the files are photos that I placed there and files from word invoices etc as pdf. So those should be virus free? leaving just the infected external HD drive to clean up.

Cheers!