Backing up after its too late...

sarah_2-2

My computer somewhat died on me yesterday- I tried to uninstall the SP2 that came with it (for various reasons) but it really didnt like it and now refuses to open windows... I've found a step-by-step solution to restore rather than reinstall on the internet, but I'm still worried that I might lose all my data- and :wall: genius here has never done a full back up...

Is there any way to back up at least some of my data if I can't get windows to open? I'd be storing it on an external hard drive. I dont mind so much about all the programs etc, its just all my music and photos (about 5GB worth of stuff) which isnt stored anywhere else... _pale_ Thanks for any advice

Zahc

If you've really goosed your OS, you can take out your HDD and put into another PC as a slave and remove the data that way. Depending on what you've done, you might be able to go back to a restore point? Boot into safe etc, or have you properly messed it up?;)

sarah_2-2

When I restarted the computer after unistalling SP2, windows didn't start properly, so know I get to the 'do you want to start in safe mode?' screen, but no matter what I press, it always freezes on that. These instructions on the internet tell me how to go back to a restore point I think, but I'm open to any suggestions!

Browntoa

you can make a knoppix boot disk on another PC

http://www.knoppix.org/

boot up with that, you need to go into bios on boot up and change the boot option to CD drive first

this will then give you access to your hard disk and burn the data to CD

Garf

A live linux program works very well (mentioned above)

All you end up doing is running another operating system from a CD (or even a USB stick) and not reinstalling onto the hard drive.

You also may end up liking Linux Operating system and end up installing it. Best of all, Linux is free to use and update, and far safer than Windows.