Hi, im fixing or attempting to fix a laptop for my friend. It appears my only option is to do a clean install and that would lose all her files including photos that cant be replaced and short stories that we think she has saved in word /office documents. I've heard that Ubuntu live rescue remix could help but i thought I'd come on here and ask the experts as i was never very good at Linux and it was Debian i used at the time. Can someone tell me if this is a viable option and also how I would go about this as ive never attempted anything like it.
Thanks, John.

The System Rescue CD should work for this. The link below is to the site which has a lot of documentation and instructions on how to download and burn it as a bootable CD or flash drive as well as how to use it:

http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage

2 members found this post helpful.

You can use SystemRescueCD, as yancek already pointed out. Like many other distros aimed for rescue/forensics it contains the Testdisk package, which can be used to restore lost partitions and mount their filesystems, so that you can access the files. Often this is not possible anymore, for example because the filesystem is damaged. For that case Testdisk also comes with Photorec (which despite its name can recover many types of files, not just photos). Photorec will run over the entire partition and search for file signatures, so that it can try to recover the files.

Both are text-based applications, but menu-driven, so they are relative simple to use.

After you have hopefully recovered those important files it is time to think about a good backup plan. Files that are not backed up can't be important.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks very much for the speedy response guys, yeah, hopefully i find it easy to use and as soon as its fixed I'll make a backup image and tell her to back up everything she does on to her pen drives.

In the past I've used a live Puppy Linux CD to rescue files from a "broken" Windows system though other distributions work as well. You'll have to download the iso file of the distribution and get a CD or DVD burned. Then boot the CD/DVD, as the live distro runs in memory, nothing is touched on the faulty Windows install.

Puppy's nice as you get an application on the desktop (Mutt?) which will then allow you to mount the Windows disk. You'll also have to connect and mount a suitably sized USB external Hard disk to use as the destination for the recovered files. (Mount = connect to the Linux file system to allow you to access both drives)

With both the Windows disk and the External disk mounted, it's then just a case of identifying the files on the Windows disk (usually under Music, Pictures, etc, etc,) and copying them to somewhere suitable on the External disk. Drag-n-drop works. Easy Peasy!

You then need to shut everything down and blow away the Windows install by reformatting the hard drive (You disconnected the External drive didn't you? You don't want to format the wrong drive!)
Restore your Windows install from your Install media, re-connect the USB drive and copy your data/music/pictures back. Job Done!

Play Bonny!

1 members found this post helpful.

Really most live CD\DVD\USBs... work, some have more to offer; try playing with 'Distribution category' here: http://distrowatch.com/search.php?os...&status=Active

1 members found this post helpful.

I agree with soadyheid, puppy is the easy way to go to do this. Just use the live cd and in the left hand
bottom corner of the screen you will see the windows partician, open it drag and drop it wherever you wish.

2 members found this post helpful.

Any live cd can recover data if it can access the drive. (well, maybe one out of 1000 can't)

You can back up to usb, or even network or cloud.


If you can't access the disk normally then you can try testdisk. Almost every distro has it or easily added to live cd with software management.

3 members found this post helpful.

Some how tos from the web

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=58305

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...dows-computer/

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15761...buntu-live-cd/

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/foru.../#entry2948033

If anyone has better how to links. I guess post away.

2 members found this post helpful.

Thanks, i think I will have to go through those tutorials. I bought system rescue cd and realised i was out of my depth with it. I had hoped using the test disk would show and even more hopeful that it would run and fix the problem for me(lol, that's how inexperienced I am). I have just read back on this post and spotted the comment about possibly using photorec. I will try that next although i think my inexperience will get the better of me on this one. Should've paid more attention at college.

Hello. You may find some of the links from the first link in my signature useful as-well? Never too late to learn,,, best wishes and have fun.