I have recently received the dreaded STOP Message (Inaccessible Boot Device) from my Windows 2000 OS... I've given up on the help the MS folks are providing and have chosen a new path. I have succesfully booted a suggested IsoLinux Rescue CD "timos_rescue_cd_set-0.9.11.iso" on this same machine, and with this I can see that all my data is still on the drive. I am trying to move all the data from this defective drive to another drive on a seperate computer via whatever means I can, but have fallen short due to inexperience with the Unix based OS. This is the question... Is there anyone out there that is familiar with: one, the rescue disk I am using and what tools on this CD might be used to make this transfer possible (and can explain to a newbie, in data retreival and transferring, how to use these tools...?); or two, another way in which this tranfer can be completed using any other tools...? I am running Windows 2000 on the second machine but would not be opposed to loading whatever necessary to make this transfer as smooth as possible. I would prefer a quick transfer via NIC-to-NIC (CrossOver), or USB solution if it's out there. I appreciate any and all support on this matter... thanks in advance.

Well what cd are you using? and external usb harddrive would be easiest. over a network would be alittle harder. look into nfs or samba. I'm guessing this rescue cd has networking. You'll have to do your own research on how to setup nfs or samba.

I am assuming the drive just has boot problems and the data is not corrupted or damaged.
I would personally recommend getting or download a copy of Knoppix (see the download section here at LQ). As a MS user you might find the gui desktop less threatenning than the command line. Format a new drive and install into the existing box. Boot the system and identify the old and the new hard drive and partitions eg /dev/hda1 and /dev/hdb1. Bring up a shell (click on the little black screen on the task bar) and enter su (for root) there is no root password so just press enter. Then do (using the device names above) ;

dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/hdb1

Interpretation is disk dump input_file=/dev/hda1 output_file=/dev/hdb1

When complete you can shutdown the system and remove the old drive and connect up the new one and create a new mbr and it should boot. If the integrity of the data is good then the drive should be identical to the old one and you can continue as though nothing happened.