Using windows and PC wont boot?

rhythmsoup

The amount of times I have seen people attempt to repair a PC running with windows, fallen foul and lost a lot of data has prompted me to post this here. I simply want to make people aware of this simple but very useful method of getting at your precious data before you try to fix your PC. This is for windows users who find their PCs wont boot properly or keep restarting. It wont work if you have a hardware problem, (i.e. you dropped the machine and there bits rattling around inside)

All is not lost! If your PC tries to boot the operating system (OS) then it may be that something has gone wrong with a file on the disc thats critical to the OS. The first thing you must do is make sure you backup your data before taking the PC for repair, or attempting any recovery. This proceedure covers using a "Live" Linux CD/DVD to boot your machine to recover your data. Linux is just another type of operating system, think of it like an alternative to windows. A "Live CD/DVD" is basically a Linux operating system on a CD/DVD, no installation needed. You pop the CD/DVD into your PC and boot from that instead of your normal Windows system which is on your hard drive.

Things you will need

• Another PC with a CD burner
• A Broadband internet connection or access to one
• Some writeable CDs / DVDs
• Your PC can boot from your CD/DVD drive
• An external backup drive

The proceedure

1. Download the CD image and burn onto a CD. There are many choices out there, Ubuntu is one of the most popular and so we'll use this one as an example. The Ubuntu site gives very easy to follow instructions on how to download and burn the image. Do this on your working machine.
2. Place the CD into your problem PC's drive and switch on the machine
3. Most machines will look to boot from the CD/DVD drive first, if they dont then look at the screen on boot, you may see a brief message saying "press F12 for boot device selection", if you miss your window of opportunity then you may need to power off / on the machine again
4. Once you have your boot device selection menu, select the CD/DVD drive, and hit enter (skip this is the PC finds the CD/DVD automatically)
5. Allow the OS to boot from CD/DVD, it may well take sometime, you will boot into Linux desktop.
6. Once on the desktop you will see on the top toolbar "Places", click this. A window will open showing you some files and folders, similar to what you get in windows. You'll see a icon called "computer" click this.
7. You will see a icon that looks like a disc and may be labelled "windows" or "Vista" or even a long string of letters and numbers, clicking on this will "mount" the drive inside your PC where windows is installed, you may be asked for a password to mount this media, generally the password on Live CDs is blank, so just hit enter.
8. Attach your external drive to your USB port, you will see the drive appear on the desktop, also a window will open displaying this drives contents.
9. Using your two open windows in #7 and #8 you will be able to copy files from the window in #7 to the window in #8, thereby copying files from the drive inside your PC where windows is installed to your backup drive.
10. If you have a lot of space on your external drive, theres no reason you cant just copy everything across, however this may take some time. You can either copy all files or a selection of your documents. For example, on Windows XP you copy the “Documents and Settings” folder, on Vista you copy the “Users” folder.

This is a very generic description. A very good step by step guide is here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD

A guide to how to burn a iso image is here

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

A nice step-by-step guide also is here

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/

I hope this post may help some people realise that there is a "get out of jail free card" you can play before you attempt to repair, fix, etc your Windows install.

Note, if you suspect the problem is due to malware, note that any backup files you create may also be infected depending on the nature of the problem. Make sure you virus scan these files before transferring back onto your repaired PC or onto another windows machine.

fwor

Good summary. A couple of other things that may help:

If your "dead" PC doesn't have a CD drive but can boot from a USB device, all recent versions of Ubuntu can take the pain out of creating a bootable USB device, as there is a "USB startup disk creator" option in the System, Admin menu.

You can also use the basic antivirus tools (ClamAV, etc), HDD status (Disk Utility, aka Palimpsest) partition editing and MBR repair tools (GPARTED, etc.) to good effect on a Windows-based system from a Linux LiveCD.

I should add: Don't be tempted to use something like GPARTED if you are not sure about what you are doing!

poppy10_2

Nice try, but this guide somehow manages to be both hopelessly vague and confusingly complicated at the same time.

rhythmsoup

poppy10 wrote: »

Nice try, but this guide somehow manages to be both hopelessly vague and confusingly complicated at the same time.

Please be more specific and I'll change / expand on the details.

poppy10_2

OK what about this

rhythmsoup wrote: »

The amount of times I have seen people attempt to repair a PC running with windows, fallen foul and lost a lot of data has prompted me to post this here. I simply want to make people aware of this simple but very useful method of getting at your precious data before you try to fix your PC.

This is for windows users who find their PCs wont boot properly or keep restarting. Note: if theres a BIOS - you are going to lose a lot of non-technical people here or hardware problem with the machine then this is a different kind of issue and as such isnt covered in this post. if its not covered best just not to mention it rather than confusing the issue right at the start of the guide, or at least just say this might not work for everyone but is a good first step.

All is not lost! If your PC tries to boot the operating system (OS) then it may be that something has gone wrong with a file on the disc thats critical to the OS. The first thing you must do is make sure you backup your data before taking the PC for repair, or attempting any recovery

There are two basic ways to do this;
[STRIKE]1. Remove your hard drive, place it into another machine or a hard drive caddy, and access it from there backing up the files you need (not covered in this post as most people especially those with laptops under warranty wont want to dismantle their machine to access the internal drive)[/STRIKE] - omit, or reword more simply without using terms like caddy, dismantle and internal drive which will scare a lot of non-techies
2. Boot your machine from a CD / DVD / USB using a "Live" Linux image - explain briefly what a live linux image is before going on to the procedure.

As im a newbie I cant post URLs [STRIKE]so I'll have to reference sites textually.[/STRIKE]

[STRIKE]Assumptions

• you have another PC with a CD burner
• you have a broadband internet connection or access to one
• you have some writeable CDs
• your PC BIOS allows you to boot from your CD/DVD driver or USB connected device
• You have a external backup drive

Again reference to PC BIOS and external backup drives will cause many non-techies to stop reading and start running away in panic
[/STRIKE]

The proceedure

[STRIKE]Using a CD as an example, the procedure is the same for a USB connected device if you decide to use that[/STRIKE] - I doubt many non-technical people will be able to use a bootable USB live linux distribution without specific intructions, prob best left for another guide. Stick to one topic: making a linux live CD.

1. Download and burn onto a CD a "live" linux CD. There are many choices out there, Ubuntu is popular, Knoppix has also been around for a long while. ubuntu.com and knoppix.net are two good resources. Search for "linux live CD" and you will find a wealth of information out there, the sites also show you how to burn the "iso" image to CD/DVD or copy to USB - to avoid confusion stick to one specific distribution (preferably an easy to use one like Ubuntu Live) and post specific instructions on where to get it and how to burn it to a CD, rather than just telling people to google linux live CD and figure it out for themselves.<
2. Place the CD into your problem PC's drive and switch on the machine
3. Most machines will look to boot from the CD/DVD drive first, if they dont then look at the screen on boot, you may see a brief message saying "press F12 for boot device selection", if you miss your window of opportunity then you may need to power off / on the machine again
4. Once you have your boot device selection menu, select the CD/DVD drive, and hit enter (skip this is the PC finds the CD/DVD automatically)
5. Allow the OS to boot from CD/DVD, it may well take sometime, you will boot into a "Live" environment
6. Depending on the desktop you may find on the toolbar a "places" icon or a "home" folder, click on these to open up a file browser 'you may find' doesn't sound very hopeful. If you stick to one specific distribution you will be able to post specific instructions on what to click to open up the file browser.
7. You will [STRIKE]probably [/STRIKE]see a icon that looks like a disc and may be labelled "windows" or "Vista" [STRIKE]or even a long alphanumeric string,[/STRIKE] [STRIKE]clicking on this will "mount" the drive,[/STRIKE] you may be asked for a password [STRIKE]to mount this media[/STRIKE], generally the password on Live CDs is blank, so just hit enter.
8. Attach a external drive, and using another file manager window, open up the external drive, and copy any essential files from your internal drive to your external one What is a file manager window? What are the essential files that I need to copy? These are the questions that people will be asking.

rhythmsoup

poppy10 wrote: »

OK what about this

Pefect, changes incorporated, thanks for your comments. How could this post be made into a sticky?