Get Some Files From Virused External Hdd

Ricsie

Hello

I have a external HDD, which probably has some viruses. because>

I had virus on my PC, no antivirus could see it but my PC always freezed, i moved started windows safe mode, and backed up some very importanbt files, mainly school documents and projects to external HDD in safe mode,

Now i need some of the files back, what should i do? If i boot up the linux and in linux or BSD I copy the important files back and then format the harddrive would it help?

Thanks