Recovering data from a HDD

wedgie · 22 Jun 2007 at 23:02

Is it possible to remove the HDD from a computer so it can be accessed and files copied?

My pc has a killer virus, has gone from working fine to not even booting it up in less than a day. Is it feasible to remove it, put it into another computer and copy all the files I need saved?

There's no doubt it will need to be formatted but I'd be gutted if I couldn't back up my mp3s, vids etc before it is done.

geeza · 22 Jun 2007 at 23:36

yep certainly is. ive done it a couple of times. a physically damaged or corrupt hard drive is another matter though (as i found out when i lost all my uni work, pictures films and music!

)

AMDPower · 22 Jun 2007 at 23:38

My pc has a killer virus, has gone from working fine to not even booting it up in less than a day. Is it feasible to remove it, put it into another computer and copy all the files I need saved?

Hi there

yeah its possible and have done similar thing before, but you do run the risk of infecting the computer you are on depending on type of virus/infection you have.

what version of windows do you have?

EDIT

beaten to it.

wedgie · 23 Jun 2007 at 07:47

It's running XP.

Can't believe how quick this has wrecked the whole system. Can only blame mself tbh, had a moment of stupidy and allowed something onto the computer that even a novice should know not to.

I bought an external HDD knowing I would need to back up my files, it went downhill so fast I didn't even have chance to start.

Glad to know there is at least a chance I could recover the data, I'll have make sure everything is backed up on the computer I put it into, at least then if the worst does happen it wont be as big a problem as the one I have.

Thanks guys.

mattyrigby00 · 23 Jun 2007 at 11:00

just get any linux cd image which supports booting to a live cd-mode (download and burn it to a cd with another pc), boot to it on the virus infected pc and if the external hard drive shows up itll be easy to copy files from the xp drive to the external hard drive

(windows viruses wont do anything in linux lol) but if it doesnt show up at first, things might be complicated. also youll probably want to do a "low level format" to the xp drive to make sure the virus is gone