How do I transfer files from bad sata hard drive to new hard drive

equanb · 24 Dec 2011

Hi. I have a virus infected sata hard drive with windows 7 on it. It has the win 7 anti virus 2012 on it, and it's a cybercriminal virus. I have lots of files I want to transfer to the new sata drive. I already have windows 7 installed on the new drive. How do I get the files from the bad drive to the new one? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

theog · 24 Dec 2011

You could make your own external HD, & than copy/paste over.
https://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-...ard-drive.html

ignatzatsonic · 24 Dec 2011

You could copy the files onto a USB thumb drive. Or just connect the source hard drive to the motherboard and access the files through Windows Explorer and drag them to the destination drive.

I assume you have some means of ensuring that the transferred files are virus-free.

rraod · 24 Dec 2011

If you connect this virus infected HDD to your windows 7 machine and start copying, you would run the risk of infecting your good machine.

Before accessing any of the files on the infected drive, make sure you have a good Anti-Virus program on your computer, updated with latest virus updates, increase the security of the program to maximum, scan your system before connecting the HDD.

Now connect the infected HDD to the system either directly to the motherboard, or through a external USB case. Scan the infected HDD completely first and clean any viruses left on HDD.

Now transfer the required files from the HDD to your internal HDD. using either Windows internal copy function or by Teracopy program.

dsperber · 24 Dec 2011

One more easy way carries forward from the external-USB approach but is a bit cheaper (and probably temporary) in that it doesn't depend on an enclosure. Rather it simply uses an inexpensive SATA/IDE-to-USB adapter.

You just remove the old drive from its internal mounting, connect a few cables (power and data) to the adapter kit, sit the drive on the cardboard carton the adapter came in as a "temporary home", and plug in the USB end of that cable to a USB port on the computer.

I've used this $15 kit purchased at Micro Center on two old machines which family/friends were upgrading to new boxes. We had no intention of retaining the old drive, so this temporary non-enclosure approach was fine.

Obviously, this is merely the physical solution to how you make the old drive available to the new machine or new Windows installation. Dealing with or protecting yourself from the potentially virus-infected files on the old drive is another matter entirely.

NOTE: as with any USB/removable device, if you want to disconnect the drive from the PC you should first "safely remove hardware", to let Windows flush out any data buffers and disconnect from the drive. When you get "it is now safe to remove..." message then you can pull the USB cable out from the PC. Then you can pull the power cord from the wall.

I repeat: do NOT pull the power cord from the wall first (while Windows still has communication to the USB drive and a drive letter is still allocated). Only pull the power cord out once you have done the "safely remove hardware" action and it's completed, and Windows has de-allocated the drive letter, and you've now pulled the USB cable out of the computer.