pc won't power on anymore

[wittyusername]

Recently my DH opened a dodgy attachment and crappy NAV failed to cure the numerous trojans and viruses that materialised. I've since learned my lesson and got AVG and ZoneAlarm on my new one.

My question is, the PC can't even power on anymore, we think that may be a separate issue as the PC is about 5 years old... do I have any hope of getting my pics from the knackered PC's hard drive?

[CruelAndUnusualParenting]

Yes, you should be able to get the pictures back. If the PC won't power on it's probably either the power supply or the motherboard. The disk should be fine and can be removed and plugged into your next PC or used as an external disk for backups.

[wittyusername]

Thank you! What about getting rid of the malware that must still be on it? The PC died while we were trying to sort it.

[MrVibrating]

Run a full scan of the drive when you plug it in to your new PC.

[CruelAndUnusualParenting]

Alternatively, if you're up to something more techie, use an Ubuntu liveCD to copy off what you want, scan the stuff you've copied to make sure it's clean, then wipe the whole drive.

Ubuntu won't run Windows viruses, so it's a good choice for safe copying, but it won't be a familiar environment.