Remove virus infected HD and scan on second PC?

[flenn]

A friend is dropping off their PC which has multiple viruses and has all but quit working. Rather than trying to get the lumbering PC working, can I just remove the hard drive and install it as a secondary HD on a spare PC that has the latest Norton AV and virus definitions? This seems like the easiest solution, but I'm wondering how risky it is that the viruses can get by NAV and infect the spare PC. The spare PC has nothing on it but the OS and NAV so I'd only risk a minimal reinstall, but I just want to get a feel if this is a valid way to pursue cleaning an infected HD. Your thoughts?

 

[stockjock]

You say his has all but stopped working...can you get to a DOS prompt...if so, most Anit-virus programs have the ability to do a scan from DOS I believe.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Safer to not move an infected drive to a clean system.

As stockjock stated, boot from floppy and run anti-virus handling programs on the infected system.

It ensures that nothing can leak over on the good system. Why take a chance. It is faster on your time to not remove the HD and move it back and forth.