Anyone good with Windows?
Jun. 9th, 2009 03:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livSo my brother emailed me in a panic, his friend's computer won't boot into Windows and he's scared to reinstall Windows in case he loses all her data. I know in theory reinstalling the OS is supposed to leave files untouched, but I also know that doesn't work very well. Does anyone know the black magic to save the files from the pre-boot screen? We've got as far as the Microsoft support documentation and some basic Google searches, anyone have anything better than that?
His description of the problem:
ETA: further question pulled up from the comments:
His description of the problem:
I have an XP disc. I booted it from the disc and it let me enter a recovery console. I tried a check disc recovery thing but that didnt help. If I run the fix boot program will it wipe all of R___'s data? Can I reinstall windows without wiping the C Drive? Is it easy? Is there a way of getting the data before reinstalling windowsAny suggestions much appreciated!
ETA: further question pulled up from the comments:
One little question, how do I get to the dos prompt? When I boot from the XP disc, I can enter the recovery console, reinstall windows or exit everything it seems to me. My research suggested that the recovery console doesn't give you enough access rights (?) to copy files to an external drive.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-09 02:46 pm (UTC)I booted from the windows disc and got to a command prompt from that. I also connected up a USB external hard drive, which windows managed to autodetect, and then copied across the content of the internal drive onto the external drive with the DOS command "xcopy".
xcopy c:\*.* /c /a /k /ewill copy everything from the c: drive onto whatever drive you're currently on. (So, in my case, the external drive was e: so I entered
e:\and then the above command.)Don't know if he has an external drive available or not, but if he does, that's probably easy than taking the existing drive out of the broken computer and putting it into a working one temporarily.
All very helpful
Date: 2009-06-09 03:05 pm (UTC)It's good to have a sister with useful friends. I don't think I want to attempt taking a computer apart. I might take it down to a shop in Hove if it comes to that. I do have access to enough external hard drive space I think. I certainly know friends with them. I even think I have a dictophone with several gygabytes of available memory and crazy R does not have a lot on her computer. One little question, how do I get to the dos prompt? When I boot from the XP disc, I can enter the recovery console, reinstall windows or exit everything it seems to me. My research suggested that the recovery console doesn't give you enough access rights (?) to copy files to an external drive. Failing that I'll try and get hold of a linnux disc and see what happens, that might be fun and can't do too much damage. I do have a network of sorts in my house.
You guys are so cool
Ps. What does Linnux Fu mean?
Re: All very helpful
Date: 2009-06-09 03:11 pm (UTC)Where karate-fu is super-good at karate, or juggling-fu is good at juggling ... "fu" has a meaning all of its own. Someone else can tell you its origin.
Re: All very helpful
Date: 2009-06-09 03:44 pm (UTC)"chi kung" = "energy skill"
These Chinese terms are usually transliterated now as "gong fu" and "qigong", but "kung fu" tip-toed into English in the 1970s.
So "fu" means "man", but got mistaken by English speakers for the adjective part of the phrase, and has been co-opted to mean "skill", with the implication of considerable or notable skill.
Re: All very helpful
Date: 2009-06-09 03:51 pm (UTC)Re: All very helpful
Date: 2009-06-09 04:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-10 03:56 pm (UTC)Backing up Windows from Linux
Date: 2009-06-09 04:59 pm (UTC)Funnily enough, I had cause to try and rescue Windows from Linux when my machine died (after a Micros~1 software update) on my first day at my new job yesterday.
I tried rescuing it using a Fedora 10 Live DVD. This didn't mount the Windows hard drive manually automatically. I was able to do so by the following sequence of commands, entered at the command line (Applications -> System Tools -> Terminal):
su -
mkdir /mnt/windows
mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows
This mounted the Windows filesystem on the hard disk represented by device /dev/sda1 in the folder /mnt/windows. If your hard disk has more than a single partition, it may be a different device that you'll need. I was able to find a tool from the task bar menus which allowed me to identify which device I needed, but damned if I can find it now at home. Possibly it's not on the Gnome menus on Fedora 8, which is what I'm using at home.
Can anyone help further?
Re: Backing up Windows from Linux
Date: 2009-06-09 05:36 pm (UTC)Root commands in unixes assume that you a)know exactly what you are doing and b)have your feet backed up somewhere, because you're dancing a jig in a minefield.
While "learn by doing" definitely applies, learn by doing while you're trying to recover critical data is... less than optimal, shall we say? It's a much better idea to get someone who actually knows what they're doing to show you/do it for you than to try to figure out what you're doing while not losing your data.
(Fedora, for example, uses udev, which means that the device files (the /dev/sda1 or /dev/sdb2, etc. that correspond to physical hardware) can move around between boots; this is why you use disk labels rather than device files as mount identifiers in udev systems. Someone who doesn't know that can get themselves into a right muddle.)
Re: Backing up Windows from Linux
Date: 2009-06-10 04:50 pm (UTC)While "learn by doing" definitely applies, learn by doing while you're trying to recover critical data is... less than optimal, shall we say?*
What wonderful phraseology.
Southernwood
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-09 05:36 pm (UTC)fdisk -l" at a command prompt is likely to be a good way to identify the right disk partition.(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-16 05:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-09 05:37 pm (UTC)-r" to that mount command, on the general principle that it helps to avoid the risk of accidentally modifying the filesystem.Re: Backing up Windows from Linux
Date: 2009-06-09 05:42 pm (UTC)I'm afraid I didn't quite understand your post. what does:
"mount the Windows hard drive manually automatically" mean?
what is it to mount a file system?
and what is it to represent something by a device?
I'm pretty certain that the laptop in question does not have more than a single partition, so maybe that doesn't matter.
Also, where do I get hold of a Linux DVD from? do I just download onto my hard drive and burn onto a DVD?
hope your new job is going well.
Re: Backing up Windows from Linux
Date: 2009-06-10 11:51 am (UTC)"mount the Windows hard drive manually automatically" mean?
what is it to mount a file system?
Mounted filesystems in *nix are filesystems the OS knows about. So when, say, inserting a CD-ROM, the OS will make it available as part of the normal file hierarchy: mounting it automatically.
The Linux Live DVDs we are referring to here run the entire operating system off the DVD. When running them (or Fedora 10 at any rate) only the DVD filesystem is mounted; the Windows filesystem on the hard disk is not; so when you run Nautilus (the Gnome equivalent of Windows Explorer) you won't see anything on the hard disk; only on the DVD. The instructions I gave above are how to mount the hard disk on the filesystem.
and what is it to represent something by a device?
*nix has a folder of special files representing devices, including potentially present hard disks, DVDs and floppies. When mounting a drive, you have to specify both a mount point (an empty folder to attach the drive's filesystem to) and the device corresponding to the relevant device).
Also, where do I get hold of a Linux DVD from? do I just download onto my hard drive and burn onto a DVD?
Download Fedora 11 Live CD as an ISO image from here and follow the instructions here for burning it to a CD-ROM or DVD.
HTH.
Re: Backing up Windows from Linux
Date: 2009-06-10 01:16 pm (UTC)That now makes more sense to me. The question is how much damage can I do?
I take it the theory is that I load linux from the DVD and then mount (as you put it) the hard disc, cunningly locate the C-Drive and take all the vital data off it and then reload windows and restore the data.
I suppose the danger occurs when I am trying to mount the hard disc because I have no idea what any of those commands mean. If I add a "/r" to your commands as suggested above, will it make everything safe?
Love, me
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-10 03:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-10 04:41 pm (UTC)You can take your choices: Personally I would be happier pursuing a solution that involved typing in commands in an unknown operating system than unscrewing the lid, removing the hard disk, and then trying to access the files off it; YMMV.