Hello I am running (or was running) Windows 7. The hard drive has apperantly crashed. I was told to download a copy of Parted Magic which I did. Could someone please help me run this program or help me figure out how to save my data (mainly just pictures)
Thank you

i just google searched it and found how tos on it. you need to put the iso on a disk (cd or dvd whatever) and boot using that. that will start a live disc operating system and you use that to recover the files. just make sure not to format the disk until you have copied all of your files off.

personally when that has happened to me though i have plugged the failed drive as a slave on a pc that has a working operating system. most times the boot sectors fail but the rest of the disk is fine so it cant boot but you can still use it.

Hello,
I did burn Parted Magic to a disk and stuck it in the computer that is dead. It came on but from there I have no clue what to do. I did try to read some of the how to manuals but they seem to be more geared to the people who actually know what they are doing and I am not one of them. Actually I need someone to walk me step by step through the process. I know that is asking a lot but I am hoping some kind soul will help.

As far as plugging the hard drive in as a slave, I have read about that as well and am lost.
Thank you for any help you can offer

Are you trying to get data from the hard drive on the computer which 'apparently crashed'? What exactly does that mean? Are you no longer able to boot whichever operating system you had on the drive? After you downloaded the parted magic iso file, did you burn it to disk as an image file? That is necessary, you cannot just copy it to a CD/DVD. What does 'stuck it in the computer that is dead' mean? After burning it as an image, did you put the parted magic cd in the drive, set the computer to boot first from the CD then boot the computer? Or what? You are a little short on detail. You should be able to use Parted Magic to get and save files from your drive to another medium such as an external drive or DVD. You need to post more details as to exactly what you have done so far.

Hello

In agreement with yancek, if your crashed drive is readable and the files you want are not corrupted, and your Parted Magic LiveCD is working properly, it should be as simple as booting the livecd, then copy/pasting any data files that you want to keep.

Hello,
I apologize for not giving more information earlier. When I said my computer was apperantly crashed, I am just assuming that it has. I really have no idea what happened to it. It froze up on me one day and after trying to restart it several times with no luck I just turned the power off and it never would boot up again. It will go to the screen with the big e (emachine) on it, down in the bottom of that screen there is an to hit "del" to enter setup or F12 for boot menu...going into setup takes me to where the Bios is going into F!2 takes me to a screen that says Roboot or insert media and select proper media. I do have the recovery disk that I had made when I first got the computer and tried to use them but even that said it was unable to automatically repair the machine. I did burn the Parted Magic as an image. I am trying to get pictures off of the computer that will no longer boot up and put them on a cd or dvd or whatever it is that I can put them onto. I'm not worried about anything else on the hard drive or even being able to use it any longer just as long as I can get my pictures from it. I did manage to figure out how to get in and set the boot order so it would boot from cd first (I think I done it right)
I put the cd (parted magic) that I made into the computer that will not boot up, It did come up but from there I have no idea what I am to do. There are options on the desk top such as "file manager" "clone" "erase disk" "editor" and a few more...I'm just not sure what to do from there.
I am sorry I did not explain myself better in the earlier post if you have any more questions please ask and I will do my best to answer them also if you can help I would greatly appreciate it.
Thank you

i've never used gparted live-usb before... but if it is like any other live-usb you can navigate thru the file manager (nautilus) and try to mount and discover the directories where your photos are. experiment a little... can you also post the output of these commands in a terminal window in case we could help you further:

Maybe this is useless for me to try and do because I have no idea what any of this means.

Hello

If I remember correctly, PartedMagic comes with both, Rox-filer and SpaceFM file managers. After booting the liveCD you should be able to open a couple of windows using either app, then copy/paste or drag whatever folders you want to save to another drive or a usb flash drive. If that option doesn't work for some reason, you might be able to use the Xfburn disc burning app found on Parted Magic to copy your data files to a CD.

Parted Magic runs as root (administrative) user so the commands suggested above would be typed in a terminal. There should be a terminal icon in the extreme lower left (taskbar) of the screen. Move the mouse over the various icons, they should give some indication. The terminal icon looks like a monitor, black screen sometimes with an arrow > on it. Type each command individually, hit the Enter key to get output. Use only lower case letters and fdisk -l (that's a Lower Case Letter L, not a number one). I believe Parted Magic uses firefox, so open that and come to this site so you will then be able to post the output of the commands.

As suggested above, there should be a File Manager icon on the Desktop also where you can see folders/files. The various drive partitions may be auto-mounted and accessible and giving the output of the above commands should enable someone here to give you some suggestions.

I got one of the last parted magic free cds before they were $4.99 to download.

http://antix.freeforums.org/ssd-anti...mobile=desktop

First I would use your

and hit the del key and cruise through your bios first to make sure the hard drive is recognized. That would be my first step.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2725/...ea0d794f_z.jpg

See where it says HDD Model Name. If Empty. The Hard Drive is Toast.

Or this image http://www.dancetech.com/aa_dt_new/a..._plug_play.jpg

Item 3 shows where it see the Maxtor hard drive. You need to see that maybe. I am not in my shop at the present time to take a picture of my emachine mentioned below. Hence the on line image shots.

I also dug out of a dumpster and installed AntiX 11 base on a http://antix.freeforums.org/adventur...507-t3209.html which is a emachine also. I turned it into a personal motorcycle shop wireless media center.

If just a Windows crash and Hard Drive is still good (you can see it in bios).
Parted Magic runs as root like Puppy Linux does and anything you want to save
off of the Windows install, can be put on a pendrive of sufficient size or dvd or cd.

This is not parted magic step by step but it should help a little on what is possible to do. Even for a clueless beginner.

http://www.howtogeek.com/
I used the search box in the top r/h corner of the page to get
http://www.howtogeek.com/search/?q=r...+windows+files

If that is too hard. Try this.
That is about as good as step by step goes around here.

Good luck with it.

seeing as you are a windows user and have zero knowledge on fixing a messed up hard drive

I would take the computer to your local computer repair shop .
Every major city in the world will have a few ,and most small city's will also .


PS. using a Linux OS / recovery disk ( and Gparted or part magic ARE NOT !!!!! recovery disks )
is not that easy

Gparted/ PartMagic are NOT system recovery tools
they WILL NOT !!! fix a busted system they are not meant for that use .

They WILL reformat a disk for a new install ,and help in fixing a partition table .

but they will NOT fix a broken windows install

hello
I am here at the main menu of parted magic could someone please walk me through step be step how to recover my data. please thank you so much.

you can not use "partition magic" to recover data

it is NOT a recovery tool

it is for partitioning a drive.
used in installing a Operating system NO A BLANK drive

for "data recovery"
you need a second drive
a working computer
and some tools like "photorec" and "testdisk" and a lot of knowledge


we do not know what is wrong with your system because you can not yet use the tools and commands you were asked to


your BEST option it to take the computer to a repair shop



if it is JUST the windows 7 operating system that is busted
you can move files onto a usb thumb drive
but
if the DRIVE is bad then you will not be able to recover the files by yourself
or
if the win7 drive is encrypted ( like many are)
you by yourself will have a hard time of recovering the data

Hello

If you've somehow lost your data files on the drive in question and need to use Testdisk or Photorec to recover them, you can find both recovery tools on the Parted Magic LiveCD, and documentation for using each application can be found on the official Testdisk website:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Of course, the computer repair shop as suggested above may be the best option, too, depending on the technical problem itself and your computer repair skills.

Let us know how it goes.