A Linux Live CD to the Rescue!

Posted by on 08/02 at 01:05 PM Permalink
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Computer hard drives. They’re an essential component of your computing experience. While they’re not as fragile as they were even 10 years ago, they’re often one of the weak links in the chain of hardware that makes up a desktop computer or a laptop computer.

When something goes wrong with a hard drive, you can be in a lot of trouble. Especially if you haven’t backed up your data recently. If you need that data – whether it’s office documents, photos, videos, or all of the above – right now it can cost you. Professional data recovery can cost anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. And there’s no guarantee of success.

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    Posted by Fred N Duenas  on  08/02  at  01:41 PM

  1. Ok I took the time to read you story and I found it excellent.  I am a long time computer user and using maybe two at a time and sometimes 3 one being an Apple IMAC.

    Excellent writing.  Keep it up.  Maybe some of you also listen to Leo Laporte on KFI640 / Saturday’s and Sunday’s 11:a.m. to 2:00 p.m. another good source that I like to listen to.

    Thanks,

    2. Posted by Mark Klawinski  on  08/02  at  02:17 PM

  2. I have had a similar experience recently where a laptop would not boot and came to a blinking cursor only. I popped the harddrive out and placed in an external USB case I purchsed from you guys a while back and in about 15 minutes had the data copying to another laptop. 

    The original harddrive was not shot and would reformat. I then was able to reinstall Windows XP Pro and reinstall the data.

    Your Linux Live CD tip of the week is a keeper though as a good plan A or B if needed.......

    Thanks

    Mark Klawinski

    3. Posted by Mel  on  08/02  at  03:49 PM

  3. You didn’t mention where one came by this Linus live CD to the Rescue. I would love to have one in case I have trouble since I have had three hard drives fail over the years. I now have a 750 Gig back up but not sure exactly what is on it all I know is that when I open It, it has the same thing that is on my computer. Please tell me where to get this magic disc an instructions to use it. Mel.

    4. Posted by Mike Kienenberger  on  08/02  at  04:09 PM

  4. Next time, consider using the linux “zip” command to archive your files while copying them.  This should preserve the windows file attributes, use less space on your target media, and, if your target media is particularly slow and your cpu is fast, complete sooner (as less data has to be written when it is compressed).

    For example, to recursively zip up all files in the foo directory to the foo.zip file:

    zip -r foo.zip foo

    5. Posted by Gary  on  08/02  at  05:10 PM

  5. Linux-based bootable recovery and rescue disks work well, but often a common full-system CD works just as well for recovery tasks while also being useful for emergency operation.  Several years ago I used a Knoppix CD to boot a computer with Windows problems and, using programs on the Knoppix disk, accessed and printed several documents I needed from the failed computer.

    Later, when the emergency was over, Knoppix let me connect to my LAN so I could easily copy the documents and other important files from the problem drive to another Windows computer on the LAN.  The boot problem turned out to be a corrupted file which was easily replaced by using Knoppix to download a replacement.  Because it’s familiar I still carry a Knoppix disk with my laptop, though today Ubuntu might be as good a choice or better.

    Ubuntu will ship you a ready-to-use live CD for free, which can be used to boot and test a computer as well as to install Ubuntu Linux (if you wish).  Go to https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ and request a copy—they’ll even cover the postage anywhere in the world.  Just be warned—once you start using Linux on your computer you might not be in a hurry to get Windows back.

    6. Posted by steve  on  08/02  at  06:32 PM

  6. I’ve personally rescued files from a failing hard drive that windows would not even recognize as a hard drive.  I prefer to use Puppy Linux, in live CD mode I’ve been able to save files from a failed system as well as a failed hard drive. success rate over 90%

    7. Posted by Joe Toomey  on  08/03  at  06:00 AM

  7. These are very good suggestions, but I would also recommend SpinRite by Steve Gibson.  Out of 3 hard drive failures in the past 10 years, SpinRite has completely recovered all of the contents of 2 of those drives. 

    If you still have your wife’s dead drive, I suggest you buy a copy of SpinRite and if it successfully recovers the entire disk, you do a follow up on this article.  If it does not successfully recover the hard drive, you can use the 30-day money back guarantee (http://www.grc.com/cs/licenseinfo.htm).  I have recommended it to many friends and colleagues, and they are always amazed at how effective it is.

    8. Posted by AzWiz  on  08/05  at  11:40 AM

  8. I second Joe’s comments.  Actually he beat me to it!  I have been using spinrite since Steve (Gibson) first wrote it, probably 5 or 6 yrs ago. It has salvaged so many drives for me I can’t even tell you. I repair computers for a living so I can vouch for the quality of the software.  It is a dos based, bootable program that runs off of a diskette or a diskette image on a usb drive. I don’t know if it is *nix “aware” yet, but does a great job on fat16, fat32, and ntfs formatted drives.

    All in all it belongs in any tech’s software tool kit.

    9. Posted by Gary  on  08/06  at  10:15 AM

  9. Here’s another vote for SpinRite!  I bought it back in 1989 after reading some good reviews; it saved my bacon less than a month later when the hard drive on the computer that held all our business records refused to boot.

    I still prefer using a Linux ‘live’ CD because it gives me full access to my data immediately—I’m much happier if my data is in a safe place BEFORE playing with low-level stuff on a hard disk—but for actually recovering a balky drive I don’t know of anything that compares to SpinRite.

    10. Posted by AzWiz  on  08/10  at  07:39 PM

  10. Boy Gary, you sure make a guy feel old when “5 or 6 years” turns out to be more like 20!!  I also bought Spinrite 5 in 1988 or 89 as I had been following Steve’s (Gibson) tech column in InfoWorld. 5 or 6 years ago (2004) is when SpinRite6 was released.  After checking, I will also have to eat my words about *nix support.  From the GRC.com website:
    “This industry-standard data recovery tool is operating system independent, so it can be applied by users of Windows XP, 2000, Linux, and all other Intel/AMD PC‑platform hard drives and file systems.”
    I think I will go drink some warm milk and take a nap.

    11. Posted by AzWiz  on  08/10  at  07:51 PM

  11. I’ve taken up enough space here, but I forgot to mention that every software “toolkit” should have a copy of “The Ultimate Boot CD” ( http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/).  I’ve found over the years that there is almost never “one size fits all” in repair/recovery.  I use every resource available.  My cardinal rule however, is to make an image backup BEFORE doing anything. I use Acronis, but Ghost and most other imaging software will do a sector-by-sector copy, errors and all.  As I always tell my customers, this protects you and your data, and me (from your lawsuit)

    12. Posted by oneness  on  08/11  at  03:26 AM

  12. I like the way you have narrated the problem and the solution to it. Though I’m not a regular Linux user, it has given me an idea as to how to solve these kind of problems. Thanks for your tip!!

    13. Posted by Gary  on  08/14  at  03:43 PM

  13. AzWiz re “feeling old,” you blew your own cover—everybody would have simply thought you were still a kid and I was the only old fart on the block. <G>

    Regarding the Ultimate Boot CD, y’know, I looked and sure enough, there in the back pocket of my briefcase sits a copy of UBD, the Ultimate Boot Disk on a 1.44 floppy that won’t boot anything made in the last five years—make that more like ten.  Time marches on.

    14. Posted by alex  on  09/13  at  05:54 AM

  14. the flash drive solution is very useful. for if you want to boot a new OS on a netbook you can use your USB drive.

    15. Posted by Download XP Drivers  on  02/11  at  09:20 AM

  15. I am not a Linux user but glad to have stumbled in this article. Thanks a lot!

    16. Posted by Bridges To Recovery  on  02/20  at  08:43 PM

  16. where you dont actualy have a health bar and when u get hurt your screen turns red and then it goes back to normal in a couple of seconds. So i was wondering are there any FREE online First Person shooters like cod in the sense of the auto health recovery. Thx a ton .

    17. Page 1 of 1 pages

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