Windows 7 - Getting files off external hard drive

We had an external hard drive hooked up to our last computer that automatically backed up everything once a week. My dad was trying to copy the files from the hard drive (which was from an XP) to the windows 7. He says he doesn't understand the formatting of Windows 7 and wanted me to figure it out, but I'm not the best at computers and figure this would be easier. He apparently doesn't know how to access the file of the hard drive from the computer to copy the files. I'm afraid that some of the viruses that made our last computer crash will end up on our new computer so I don't want to just plug it in and look around ( I'll let him do that so he can't blame me)

Sorry if this doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but thanks for any help you can give!

Hey, and welcome to the forums! From what I understand, you're going to open up files, from a Windows XP PC to a Windows 7 PC? Well, that shouldn't be a problem, and it should work, as long as nothing is manually deleted. Am I correct, thats what you and your dad are trying to do?
Edit: @whs, I just figured he would have used a 3rd party program to update auto, but that makes sense. +1

If the XP file backup facility was used, chances are the Windows 7 does not understand the file format. The easiest would be to pull those backups in under XP and make your own copy with copy to folder to either a folder on a USB stick or an external disk. Then you can scan those files with your security program or any good scanner (malwarebytes, superantispyware) or better even send them to a scanning website. That is more thorough. Then you can just copy them into the Windows 7 system using "copy to folder or move to folder".

Did you have virus protection and do you now. Norton has really knocked them dead for me.

We had and still do have virus protection, but somehow my sister can manage to get viruses on every computer we get, haha. I don't know much about hard drives, but it is a Maxtor external hard drive of some sort that automatically backed it up. From what I understand, I think he just can't figure out how to access the folder for the hard drive once he plugs it in, in order to copy the files onto the newer computer. (I think he's making it much more difficult than it needs to be, but I haven't tried personally.) Thanks for all your help.

Try

Start Windows Explorer

Click on it, Look for an Ext Hard Drive listed in the left hand column,
See if you can click on any folders to view them


Added second snip with EXT HD turned ON! Circled in RED !

Thanks so much! I'm sure he'll be able to figure it out now

Ok, so I guess we have 2 hard drives, and the one that is most updated is a "Sabrent USB 2.0 SATA/IDE Adapter" ... whatever that means. We plugged it in and everything and saw some folders that sounded like they were from our older computer, but when we tried to click on them, it said to check and make sure the device was plugged in correctly. Now I'm really confused