Will virus affect computer if on tandem drive, not operating system hard drive

[johntamrhein]

I have 2 computer. Both with Win 7 on them.
The newer computer has no viruses and contains a 1 terabyte Hard drive with Win 7, and I upgraded to this from my older computer.
The older computer has 2 hard drives installed on it, tandemly. With a 360GB hard drive, of which contains the Win 7 operating system, along with the other 160GB hard drive, I installed to have access to files I needed on that hard drive.
This older computer runs really slow, like it has a virus on it, although Norton 360 couldn't find it. This is not to say there is no virus on it, even though Norton 360 didn't find it. And this computer does all types of erratic things, even though it's less than 5 years old. It literally freezes, once Adobe flash player tries to play a video.

What I'm wondering is, if I remove either of the 2 hard drives installed on this computer, and install one or both, in tandem with the 1 terabyte hard drive, on my newer computer, will any potential virus stay isolated to the hard drive it is on, and not affect the 1 terabyte hard drive, since I will only be accessing the files on these other two hard drives, and not using either of the 2 to startup the operating system? If so, perhaps I can install either one or both in my new computer, to access the files on them, without the risk of contracting the virus to my 1 terabyte operating system hard drive.

[Appzalien]

Virus infection is not the only thing that can slow down a system. What you should do is run a disk check on both drives in the older PC and see if there are any errors. If an older drive starts to fail it can slow a PC to a crawl even if its the secondary drive and not the primary. You can also see if you can get some info on the manufacturer of the drives and see if they have a diagnostic you can run from a boot. I know Seagate has one that will run from within windows but you have to install it and use it to make a boot disk. I don't use WD's utilities because they install crap on your PC whether you want it or not (Data Lifeline). Even when you tell it not to install it does anyway. There are also a few freeware third party versions out there just make sure you download them from a reliable source. Try searching "Open Source Hard Drive Smart Utilities". The free Belarc Advisor will also run a check on your drives once installed, and it can be very useful for other information about your hardware, manufacturers and OS. You don't have to run from a boot utility but it could be more precise.