Use Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows Computer

If youve ever asked for help with your Windows computer that wont boot anymore, youve probably been told to Backup all your data and then reinstall but if you cant boot, how can you get to your data !hats the "uestion well be answering today# $ne of the easiest methods to access your data is to simply boot off an %buntu &ive '( and its completely free )e*cept for the cost of a blank cd+# Burn an Ubuntu Live CD If you have another computer, you can download and burn the %buntu &ive '( using a very simple application called ImgBurn# $therwise, you can bug one of your friends to help you burn a copy# ,ust open up ImgBurn, and click the icon to Write image file to disc

!hen click on the icon ne*t to -ource, pick the downloaded I-$ file, stick a recordable '( into the drive, and click burn

.ow that you have the boot cd )which you should keep in a safe place, as its very useful+, /ust stick it in the drive of the computer and boot from it# 0ou should see an option to !ry %buntu without any change to your computer#

$nce the system has started up, the first thing you want to do is choose 1laces 2 'omputer from the menu#

!his should show you all the drives available in the system, including your Windows drive# In my case, that is the 34#5 6B volume#

0ou can try and double7click on the drive to open it and if it immediately works then lucky you8 9ost of the time its going to give you an error saying %nable to mount the volume, because Windows didnt shut it down cleanly#

'lick the (etails link so that you can see the full message, and leave this window open# 0oull see a 'hoice 4: in the message, which includes the commands to force %buntu to use that drive even though theres something wrong#

What youll want to do is open a new !erminal from ;pplications 2 ;ccessories 2 !erminal on the top menu# $nce youve done that, then youll want to type in a bunch of commands, which Ill walk you through# <irst, well want to switch to administrator mode, which in &inu* terms is known as root# !he simplest way to do it is with this command= sudo >bin>bash .ow well need to create a directory that well mount the drive on# !he full e*planation of mounting drives is a little comple*, so /ust run this command= mkdir >media>disk .ow comes the tricky part# 0oull need to type out a command very similar to this one, but youll need to replace >dev>sda? with what you see in that message bo* we showed you above# !his command tells %buntu to use the ntfs7@g driver, and force mount even if there is a problem# mount 7t ntfs7@g >dev>sda? >media>disk 7o force If your drive is <;!@4 instead of .!<-, then you can use the following command instead= mount 7t vfat 7o umaskABBB >dev>sda? >media>disk

If you are having problems figuring out whether you have .!<- or <;!@4, and you cant figure out which >dev>whatever to use, then type in the following command at your prompt )make sure you already ran the command to run things as root+ fdisk 7l In the output you should see a lot more information about the available drives you can see in this e*ample that the filesystem type is .!<- and the device name is >dev>sda?#

;t this point, you should be able to access your hard drive through the icon in 'omputer#

Note: If you have more than one drive in the computer, or more than one partition, they should show up separately in Computer. You should perform the same steps as above to open those drives up as well. Backing Up to External U B !he absolute simplest thing to do at this point is to plug in an e*ternal %-B drive, which should place an icon on the %buntu desktop, and most likely immediately pop up a nautilus window showing the contents of the drive#

Note: I plugged in a US !lash drive for illustration" it would be better to plug in a full e#ternal US drive so you$ll have more space for bac%ups. W!at !ould " Backup# If you arent e*tremely technical, you might be wondering what on earth you should be backing up and thats a very good "uestion# $% Best &et!od

If you have loads of empty space on your e*ternal drive or network share, you should simply backup the entire contents of the drive, and sort through it later# Itll take a little longer, but at least that way you can be sure everything has been backed up# '% till (ood 0ou should try and backup your entire user folder on C1 youll go to (ocuments and -ettings, and on Dista youll go to %sers, and you should see your username in the list=

0ou can simply copy this entire folder to your backup drive, which should contain your music, documents, bookmarks, and most of your important files# Important Note: &his will not bac%up your application files, and you should loo% around your drive and see if you$ve saved anything important somewhere else. &his is especially true if you have more than one drive. 'gain, your best bet is to simply bac%up everything. Backing Up to )etwork !areIf you would rather backup your drive to a network share on another computer, you can use the 1laces 2 'onnect to -erver item on the menu#

'hange the -ervice type menu to Windows share

;nd then enter in the details for your network drive, with these being the re"uired fields=

-erver= 'omputer .ame -hare= -hared <older .ame %ser .ame= your username

$nce you click the 'onnect button, youll be prompted to enter in your password# !ypically you can leave (omain set to the default, but if you have a custom workgroup name you should enter that instead# I also chose the Eemember password until you logout button /ust so I wont have to enter the password again#

$nce you click the 'onnect button you should have an icon on the desktop for your network share#

.ow you can open up the network share, and if everything is setup correctly on the shared folder side of things, you can copy all of your files across the network using the instructions above on which files to choose#

;t this point you should have a backup of your data# If you backed up to an e*ternal hard drive, you might want to consider also copying those files to another computer /ust in case, and if you copied across the network you could consider backing that up elsewhere as well#