I recently dug out my old laptop from about 15 years ago and removed the hard drive. I bought a hard drive reader but I'm hesitant to connect it to my main computer since I'm not sure if the drive is corrupted or if it contains any viruses. I'm mainly looking to recover some family photos if they're still on there. I've already tried plugging it into a Linux laptop but encountered an error. Now, I'm planning to try it on a Windows laptop but I want to ensure that I do this as safely as possible. Any advice on the best way to read this hard drive?
3 Answers
I'm curious, what error did you get when you tried it on Linux? If you can share that, maybe we can troubleshoot further. But whatever you do, don’t run any programs from the old hard drive on your current system!
A solid approach is to use a docking station to set the old drive up as a temporary external drive. This way, you're not booting from it directly on your main computer. You can easily scan it for any issues this way, plus it helps isolate any potential problems. Photos should be safe, but be cautious!
Before you connect that hard drive, make sure your antivirus software is up to date and running on your computer. It’s always a good idea to scan anything like this before you access any files, just to be safe!
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