[azu nyan]

Question is more on contents of the HDD. Anyways, here's my problem:

I found my dad's old external HDD and since the power adapter was long gone, I decided to reuse the HDD inside and put it in my computer. Problem is, the last time I accessed it (2 years ago I think), it was very slow and unusable and I'm not sure if it was due to a virus or something.

Question is, in the worst case scenario that the HDD did have a virus, will that transfer over to my computer when I go on to insert it into my computer?

Just in case it might be useful, the HDD is a Seagate Barracuda 500GB (IDE).

[kenito]

remove your primary hdd from case, put that one in, boot some linux live distribution, like ubuntu(burn it to cd, or boot over usb, wich one your prefer) and format hdd(format in ntsf, if you use ext2 or ext3 windows wont recognize it), later on u can use it.
u can just put it in and format it from windows, but i think this option is safer.
if you need tips on how to use ubuntu or hot to boot it, there is all on their page.

[DTryPleX]

To me it seems unlikely that a virus would slow down the HDD like that. Generally viruses aren't created to slow shit on your HDD down...

W/e it was, it won't transfer from one HDD to another in most cases and virusses, especially if they're two years old, most likely won't even work on your current configuration (assuming it's newer than 2 years old). If you can you should just connect it to an older PC or a laptop with good virus scanners just to be certain and format the drive from there before you hook it up to your current PC.

[Dami]

why not just format it before windows start?this is what i would do; Insert the windows CD(XP) and boot, get to the HDDs screen and just format the drive you want and then reset comp after format so 2nd windows wont install on it. Done~

Ps: HDDs get slow when they get worn out, its not good to use something like that, they hog your PC.

[druithleigh]

You should be safe installing the drive since it won't be the primary drive for your computer. If the drive is infected with a virus it shouldn't effect you system unless you attempt to access information or exe files on the drive (this is assuming that your system will recognize it at all). Once the drive is installed and assuming that your system will see it, run virus and anti malware scans (super antispyware and malwarebytes are among the best). Following that go into your system tools and check volume for errors (this may take some time). The drive may be recognized as drive "E" if your main drive is "C" and you CD/DVD drive is "D" and you don't have any other devices such as external drives connected. Once your computer restarts run a registry cleaning utility (if you have one, Jv16 Power Tools is a very good utility), that should help to further clean up the drive. That's about all I can think of except that the volume may be full or near to full which will definately cause it to run slowly.

[chomio]

Originally Posted by azu nyan

Question is more on contents of the HDD. Anyways, here's my problem:

I found my dad's old external HDD and since the power adapter was long gone, I decided to reuse the HDD inside and put it in my computer. Problem is, the last time I accessed it (2 years ago I think), it was very slow and unusable and I'm not sure if it was due to a virus or something.

Question is, in the worst case scenario that the HDD did have a virus, will that transfer over to my computer when I go on to insert it into my computer?

Just in case it might be useful, the HDD is a Seagate Barracuda 500GB (IDE).

A two years old virus.... That's an ancient virus, I don't think it cause any danger, you're virus scanner will be laughing by seeing it.

If you want to be save then directly format it.

O yeah, the hard disk could also be slow because it's rather old, those old HDD can't go faster than a couple MBps, certainly if it's a bit full and not defragmented for a long time.
If this isn't the cause, it also could be on of the drivers that is broken ( or was damaged by the virus).
There could be many causes, more details could be usefull.

[Frediloc]

The virus shouldn't affect you as long as you don't go opening things. If you just want it for the storage then I advise you to format it right away. That will eliminate any viruses along with the other data.

[azu nyan]

Just read all your posts and yeah, I will only use the HDD for storage so there's no problem in that and so I'll install it later then.

Edit:
Just found a second problem; I have no idea how to install the HDD (configure it). The first time I tried to, some error regarding the IDE HDD came up and made me shit myself so I had to unplug that. If anyone here also knows how to solve this, it would be greatly appreciated.

My main HDD is SATA

[Dami]

i dont think it matters if your main HDD is sata, as long as you have an IDE connection aswell then it should work.
Ps. wasn't this an external HDD? you know you can use a power adapter from something else. Its usually a 12V-1.5A adapter. And since it was used before, im sure its already configured (NTFS).

anyways what was the exact error you got?

[azu nyan]

Originally Posted by Dami

i dont think it matters if your main HDD is sata, as long as you have an IDE connection aswell then it should work.
Ps. wasn't this an external HDD? you know you can use a power adapter from something else. Its usually a 12V-1.5A adapter. And since it was used before, im sure its already configured (NTFS).

anyways what was the exact error you got?

No I took the HDD from the external HDD case and I did that because no one sells a 5 pin adapter anymore (which means case is now useless). My only problem now is installing the HDD into my computer as I am new to it.

Edit:
I receive the following error every time I boot with the IDE HDD plugged in:

S.M.A.R.T. status bad backup and replace error.