Copying data from virus infected hard drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Roy
  • Start date Start date
R

Roy

hello folks,
I had an old hard drive that was removed from another PC due to
severe virus infection that I can't read the data anymore. Is there a
way to rectify this situation and still be able to recover the data
from that HD?
TIA
 
Roy said:
hello folks,
I had an old hard drive that was removed from another PC due to
severe virus infection that I can't read the data anymore. Is there a
way to rectify this situation and still be able to recover the data
from that HD?
TIA
Click to expand...

Install it as a slave disk then see what you can read. You
should also pay attention to these points:
- Install a good virus scanner.
- Keep it up-to-date.
- Back up your important files regularly (e.g. weekly) to
an independent medium. A 2.5" disk in an external USB
enclosure is an excellent low-cost backup medium. Next
time you might lose the lot!
 
Roy said:
hello folks,
I had an old hard drive that was removed from another PC due to
severe virus infection that I can't read the data anymore. Is there a
way to rectify this situation and still be able to recover the data
from that HD?
TIA
Click to expand...

It depends on what you mean by "can't read the data anymore". If the virus
destroyed the files by overwriting them, corrupting them, etc. then the
files are gone. There's nothing you can do in that case except restore the
files from backup.

A good way to check would be to boot with a rescue cd. In this case, I'd
boot with Knoppix, which is a Linux distro that runs live from cd. If Linux
can read the files, then I'd back them up and scan them in a Windows
machine with a current version av using updated virus definitions. Because
the drive is infected, it would be my preference to use an operating system
that won't be affected by Windows viruses to retrieve the data.

Malke
 
As stated prior, install as a slave, make sure you have a good anti-virus
program, scan the slave. Make sure you do not execute any exe files, because
in certain cases it can transfer to the primary drive.
 
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