Connecting old PC's HD to new PC

Sorry about the messy title, but trying to put what I am asking in one line isn't easy.

So, brief story. A friend of mine has a some 10 yr old XP SP3 PC which had been running slower and slower. I have done all I can with it, but it has finally refused to boot at all.

My intention is to remove the IDE HD (its only 40Gig. Yes its that old) and put it in my PC to recover his files and then reformat the HD.

As I do not know if there is any infection, or if it is just corrupted files is there anything I should be aware of before proceeding in this way?

TIA

I don't use that method.

I always attach the foreign drive to an external drive dock and back up the files to either a DVD or another external drive. I've never had a problem doing it that way.

Another way to recover his personal files and folders is to try using a Linux Distro and boot from that, I've written a brief article on how to do that ... viewtopic.php?p=618146#p618146 ... of course if he has hardware problems, or an encrypted disk, then it may not be possible to use this method.

Thanks Gary. I have downloaded Puppy and managed to recover everything off of the HD. Its a great tool, which will stay in my computer 'tool box' just in case.

You're welcome, glad you managed to recover the files.