The Complete Guide to Rescuing Your Windows System with a Thumb Drive

[pokerfan]

I do this. I keep a Live 'CD' on a flash drive on my key chain. I used to (still do, actually) keep a Live CD in my glove box for those emergency repairs when visiting friends or relatives. But sometimes I don't have my car with me. I always have my keys. I don't know how many times I've been in someone's home and something comes up in conversation that simply demands googling only to be told, "Oh, that computer takes 20 minutes to start up. We hate it." Next thing I know, I'm rescuing another Windows system and often times, if they want, I leave them with a dual boot configuration or most recently, Linux all by itself.

The Complete Guide to Saving Your Windows System with a Thumb Drive
Mar 30, 2010 09:00 AM

When Windows goes wrong, it can go really wrong. Worse: Often it's extremely difficult to save your system from Windows itself. Here's how to use a simple USB drive to free space, remove viruses, rescue passwords, and more from crunked Windows setups.



If you or your in-need friends or relatives can't boot into your Windows desktop, or you can't actually do anything once you're into it, booting up a live Ubuntu system from a USB thumb drive, or off a burned CD, can save your system, recover files, and pull off other miracles. Here's the short list of things we'll cover here:

• Clean a virus with a Linux-based anti-virus app.
  
• Recover files and save them onto that same thumb drive, to a web storage spot like Dropbox, or to another USB drive.
  
• Change your login password if you've forgotten it, or someone's changed it on you.
  
• Analyze your hard drive to figure out what's filled it, and resize partitions if you're dual booting and need to free up more space.

http://lifehacker.com/5504531/the-complete-guide-to-saving-your-windows-system-with-a-thumb-drive">More from Lifehacker

[canetoad]

1. I'm glad you posted this

Been meaning to set up a bootable USB drive for a while. As I type, UNetbootin is downloading Linux Mint, so I'll report back when it's done and installed.

It's time I expended a bit more energy on Linux. Too many excuses - programs I use for work, AMD 64chip and trouble with sound and video have put me off, apart from a couple of forays into Live CDs. Hell, I think it was Roy G Biv who sent me a set of concise commands for Linux.

The thread about the Vista laptop that wouldn't boot into the OS....very enlightening. Must admit, my mind didn't even wander in the Linux direction. Had a friends computer that wouldn't boot into XP last week, ended up putting the drive in another computer. Now if I had just been smart enough to have a bootable Linux on my flash drive..... :)

[RoyGBiv]

3. Been using Linux as a rescuse OS for years ...

I used it for that before I used it as my main OS in fact. When I worked for Cox I kept a Knoppix LiveCD in my desk and used it to check people's laptops they invariably brought it complaining "my Internet don't work." It was almost always a mis-configured Windows problem or malware. I used the Linux OS to boot and see if it I could get online without either of those options being in the mix. Often using Linux in these cases allows you to rule out Windows or software running on Windows as the issue.

We weren't a fix-it shop, but that didn't stop people. Had one guy bring his broken television in and plop it down on a desk demanding repair. Fun guy.

Anyway, options are good.

[csziggy]

2. Would this work to recover data from a drive with a damaged partition?

I 'lost' a storage partition after a defrag. It is a 200GB IDE drive with a single logical partition, not a boot drive. I suspect the partition table got damaged and just needs to be repaired. It is one a Windows XP computer that is about two years old. I've been using the drive to store mostly downloaded data on a few subjects I am interested in. The data is not essential but I took a long time collecting it and would like to recover it.

I've been looking at a program called TestDisk that was recommended but I am not sure about it. Mostly I just want to access the drive, copy it so I can save it to CDRs. Then I can transfer over to my new computer, which I ordered when this one went flaky.

But this sounds like it would work and maybe be easier than a stand alone like TestDisk - what do you think?

[canetoad]

4. I think I've used TestDisk in the past

with no joy. You could always give this one a try: Partition Find and Mount(freeware) http://findandmount.com/
I've used it sucessfully with a lost drive.

I now have a bootable (tested) flash drive with Linux Mint on it. This looks verrrry interesting.

[csziggy]

5. I can see the drive - it just lost the partition

A friend lent me Puppy to try, but I will keep Find and Mount in mind. I'm too tired tonight to deal with it - hopefully I can try tomorrow.

Thanks!

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Thanks, this might be very useful. nt