Use Linux distro as rescue

Otto-1062 · 11-25-2010, 10:03 AM

A friend has a W98 machine, W98 version unknown and machine brand unknown.

They have some text files they wish to get off.

The machine is in good working order.
No USB drivers on machine.
No internet available.

My question would it be advisable to use a linux distro to
copy the text files to a thumb drive?

Please advise.
tia

stress_junkie · 11-25-2010, 10:05 AM

I do this all the time for my clients. The question is whether that machine has USB hardware. The bootable live Linux CD will have its own USB driver.

You may need to use a minimal graphic distribution such as Trinity Rescue Kit or System Rescue CD because the machine may have very little RAM by today's standards.

linuxlearner17 · 11-25-2010, 10:18 AM

Hi Otto,

You can easily do this using pretty much any live linux distro but for me I like using Knoppix which has a reputation of being a recovery distribution. Google "Knoppix" and you'll find the latest distro...I like to keep it old school as I am using Knoppix 5.0 which is slick and boots into unrecoverable Windows systems in mere minutes.

Hope this helps!

jefro · 11-25-2010, 03:05 PM

Depending on how old the system is you may have to try something like puppy, might try an older version of knoppix even. 3.x is one that may work.

Might wish to have a bartsPE disk in your tool box too.

markush · 11-25-2010, 03:08 PM

Hi Otto-1062,

I often use slax for this purposes. http://www.slax.org/
The iso is about less then 200MB. Slax can be booted into Text mode which is much faster booted than Knoppix.

Markus