How to approach a recently discovered external HDD from College

Hi everyone,

I recently stumbled across an old external HDD from my college days. On it are pictures, files, etc. that I have not seen in a long time! However, back then, I was not as tech savvy or cautious when it comes to virus’ and things like that. It would travel between school computers, friends’ computers and my own. I used Napster a lot back then and downloaded a lot of files without thinking of the dangers! I now want to download my old photos and files onto my mac but am wondering what the best way to go about it is? Is there some virus scanner built into macOS? Or can you recommend any 3rd party software or best practices in general when approaching this situation?

Any tips would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

Sophos is lightning fast in detecting anything malicious. Doesn’t bog down your Mac.

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So will this scan the external drive before I can open anything? i haven’t used antivirus software since my windows days so I don’t remember exactly how it works.

Yes
It also inspects email attachments before opening them

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If the drive wad from your windows days chances are any virus on there would be ineffective on a mac anyway.

I’d use Sophos or Malwarebytes to scan the drive and that should do the trick

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I didn’t think of that. The computers we used in college were macs though. I don’t know if that changes things. But those suggestions are helpful. I’ll definitely look into it. Thanks!

Good to know. I’ll definitely check it out. Thanks!