A few months ago, my PC was absolutely inundated with viruses. It got to the point that I had to reformat everything, and pull all my backups off an external harddrive.

Months later, it occurred to me that there might be viruses on that external HDD. I don't know for certain, on account of that whole period being a very chaotic time, but there is a chance.

I saw that there is a sticky post about using a couple software tools to prevent USB flash drives from autorunning things once they're plugged in. My question is do I need to take any special precautions like that, or can I just plug the external HDD in and scan it straight away?