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Last night, I found my super old computer in the basement. IDK Why but I wasn't able to boot the computer from HDD itself. I was about to do something but I was a bit worried about losing all of that data. Now I want to connect it to my main computer for making a backup of data, but the problem is I'm not sure that it won't affect my hardware or main hard disk (I'm not going to boot the computer on it at all), Thanks.

Mahan Lamee
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ViperTheGuy
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    Connecting the disk shouldn't cause a problem if you have established a boot order in your BIOS/UEFI. the only solid concern there is that there may be malware lurking on the old hard disk, that might be executed when the disk is mounted (if autorun for fixed or removable disks is enabled). other than that, the worst consequence is that you'd have to power-off and disconnect the disk. – Frank Thomas Feb 26 '21 at 06:36

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Because you aren't going to boot from it, the only possible risk is any virus on that drive that can activate automatically when the disk is mounted. Also, it's better not to install a new internal disk while the computer is turned on so after attaching and turning on your computer, it will try to boot. So, even if you are not planning to boot into it, every time you turn on your computer -including the first time after installing HDD and any possible restart after- it tries to boot and if you don't have proper boot order configuration, it may boot into it so you need to configure your boot order properly. One other option for making backup besides using windows built-in tools or other software that runs on top of windows is using bootable backup software. This will reduce the chance of the virus being able to run and also makes it easier to deal with BIOS and boot orders as you only need to configure your priority to boot from USB and after making a backup, you can detach the disk and you won't boot into it. But you need to configure BIOS before your computer tries to boot after installing HDD so it will boot into the USB not any of your disks.

Mahan Lamee
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