Save files from hard drive before formatting

[Harish]

Hi,

My windows is crashing down as I am unable to control anything inside
windows. I am thinking of formatting the entire hard drive but before
I do that, I want to save all the files that I have in this hard
drive. How do I do this without touching windows? Any ideas? Thanks

 

[Gurpreet Singh]

Take out the hard drive and put it in another system as a secondary hard
drive (do this if you are sure your system is not infected by a Virus else
the second system may run into the same issue). Then use a utility like
Norton Ghost to create the image of the secondary disk. Or use the backup
utility of the OS to take selective backup of folders and files. once you are
sure have a valid backup you can format the hard disk by putting it back into
the old system or continue troubleshooting.

 

[John Wunderlich]

Hi,

My windows is crashing down as I am unable to control anything
inside windows. I am thinking of formatting the entire hard drive
but before I do that, I want to save all the files that I have in
this hard drive. How do I do this without touching windows? Any
ideas? Thanks

Create a free Live Linux CD such (as Knoppix) and boot from the CD.
You can then back up files to a USB drive or over the network. You
can also use some Windows PE disks (such as Bart PE or Ultimate Boot
CD for Windows, but they're harder to create).

You can also remove the drive and install it in another machine but
this has the disadvantage that you have to crack the case, move the
drive, and possibly infect another machine with any viruses/malware
that you have. Viruses won't infect a bootable CD.

Knoppix: <http://knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html>
Bart PE: <http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/>
UBCD4win <http://www.ubcd4win.com/>

HTH,
John


HTH,
John

 

[Kenny]

Sorry John, hit Reply instead of Reply To Group.

UBCD for Windows can be downloaded "ready made" with quite a few utilities
on it.
http://www.ubcd4win.com/contents.htm

Kenny Cargill

 

[Daave]

UBCD for Windows can be downloaded "ready made" with quite a few
utilities on it.
http://www.ubcd4win.com/contents.htm

It's not "ready made." If it were, it would be an .iso file. And there
would be copyright issues, too!

But apparently, with the current version (3.22), all needed files
(excluding your i386 folder contents) to build the .iso (the Builder,
project files, and drivers) are altogether.

 

[John Wunderlich]

Sorry John, hit Reply instead of Reply To Group.

UBCD for Windows can be downloaded "ready made" with quite a few
utilities on it.
http://www.ubcd4win.com/contents.htm

Kenny Cargill

Well, it _used_ to be ready made.
I have a version 3.0.4 CD that I downloaded from a .iso file.
Going to the site now, I see that you have to build it.

-- John

 

[Daave]

Well, it _used_ to be ready made.
I have a version 3.0.4 CD that I downloaded from a .iso file.
Going to the site now, I see that you have to build it.

I assumed you always had to build it. From the FAQ:

<quote>

Why isn't UBCD4Win available completed in ISO format?

Simply, copyright laws. In order to create the UBCD4Win boot disc, XP
files are pulled from your XP CD. That is how the project boots into a
mini "XP" environment. If we made the ISO available MS would shut the
site down and probably sue me.

</quote>

Of course, there are tons of opportunities to download UBCD4Win .iso
files from the usual places. But I'd rather build my own. Plus, whenever
you download a torrent, there's no guarantee it's the genuine article.