How Do I Fix Photos From an Old Hard Drive?
Copy them off first, then fix the dates. Old drives fail, and the file dates are usually already wrong.
Copy everything off before you do anything else. Old drives fail without warning, and the copying itself is the risky moment. Work on the copy afterwards.
Expect the file dates to be nonsense. Years of copying between machines, backup tools and operating systems will have rewritten them. The dates inside the photos, where they exist, are the ones to trust.
Takeout JSON Metadata Fixer reads the date inside each photo first and only falls back on the file date when there is nothing better. It runs on your own computer and is free for your first 500 photos.