WHAT TO DO WITH AN INFECTED HARD DISK

[THEODOOR27]

With reference to my previous question about booting up.
I have the affected harddisk.
And I would like to turn it into an external hard drive.
I have stuck it into a casing and it is all ready to go.
So I go into "My computer" click Drive E the green light on the external box turns red and the computer freezes.
Restart etc.
If possible I would like to keep the files on the disk.HOW can I do that?
Otherwise I suppose that I have to format the disk, HOW?

[anandasim]

With reference to my previous question about booting up.
I have the affected harddisk.
And I would like to turn it into an external hard drive.
I have stuck it into a casing and it is all ready to go.
So I go into "My computer" click Drive E the green light on the external box turns red and the computer freezes.

So you have your machine working properly using a different internal hard disk. And you have put the "bad" hard disk in an external USB enclosure?
If you click on drive E (make sure it is the correct letter that is your external hard disk) and the computer freezes, it could be a hardware problem or a software problem.

If possible I would like to keep the files on the disk.HOW can I do that?

To keep the files on that external hard disk, i expect you mean you documents, pictures etc... you need for the machine to keep on operating after you click on that drive in My Computer. If your machine hangs after you click on that drive letter, you can't get satisfaction. There are recovery specialists that you could get to look at that drive but they might be pricey.

Otherwise I suppose that I have to format the disk, HOW?

Use diskmanagement

http://www.theeldergeek.com/disk_management.htm

[gto-pontiac]

try getting a live CD of linux see if that reads the HDD. if don't then something is wrong with your hardware possibly the Harddrive. if its the old HDD using IDE then make sure that its not in the slave mode.
if you can read it in linux then its the software, some linux live CD can write to NTFS like knoopix, i'm not sure if ubuntu or opensuse can do that running from the live CD.
i would try this option before you format the hard drive.

and it could be the problem with windows if its a software problem try changing the drive letter to something else like Z.