This might be a better LiveCD for repairing your XP : http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd
Good Luck.
Printable View
This might be a better LiveCD for repairing your XP : http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd
Good Luck.
check out this link and scroll down to the 2nd set of 10.
theres a few (free) apps you can use
i am empathetic to your plight, and would help more, however futile the objective is.
a terminal window is the very best way to interact with our gnu/linux environments to tell our pc's what we need done.
let me start here with a story of me.
got a job at Nintendo (yes, the one and only Nintendo, dream job) and i was asked to help on a xmass surge of temps.
well, they like me so much, that out of 200 people, they selected 8 to train for full time.
i got 5 days of classroom stuff, and then was tested.
i knew the stuff, but didn't know how to type. (the test was timed), i failed.
sadly, i knew i lost a great opportunity.
so, i worked 3 jobs, and bought my 1st pc.
500mhz proc, with 128Mb or RAM....i was so happy, literally the fastest pc within 400 miles.
i did 2 things that night.
installed windows 98, and RedHat 5.0 on a dual boot w/lilo.
after the boot up (w/help from some friends in college) i spent the 1st 3 weeks in linux telneting , and learning (and even running music remotely from a freinds pc on our network from thier pc doing al the work, and mine listening to it, while saving all my proc power to do other stuff...(he later complained so much that his pc was so slow since i got mine, i stopped..out of sympathy..lol
and when i booted into windows. i got ..to reboot...about 400 times.
i spent so much time rebooting windows (and that's not even counting the unplanned rebooting/ crashing) that i decided to just run linux.
i want to pause a moment here, to state, whatever os you choose, is fine, my point is, years ago, i had a clear choice that was easily made.
and if i have never met my friends who ran linux then, i would know a whole lot more about windows.
what i realized in my 1st year, is that windows keeps up repairing and re=fixing the fixes...and they just get worse.
in linux, we learn to repair or add our needs, and it just gets better.
the amount of time i spend learning linux is equal to the time i spent fixing windows.
i don't learn every day, i use it more often than learn.
and i have to use windows at work, and even went out and own xp, and vista, just to have those os's at home (however with vista, i was so disturbed that i completely removed it, and tried to sell it asap, but no-one ever called for it : (
on the other side of this token, linux aint perfect either.
i prefer it, but it doesn't work out great all the time, (just try and load a old agp video card w/out a wrapper) or wifi (back in the day).
linux is tough. but if you hang in there, it will bring smiles to your face when everything just works.
i have never been as frustrated in my life as when i was running Mi.soft os's, and also i have felt a great wave of serenity after seeing my linux pcs can run perfectly for 7 months straight, w/out every turning off, and the only time they do turn off is when there is a power outage.
now, these days, we can even recompile the kernel w/out rebooting. how crazy is that.
but heres my point.
try the links above. (at your own risk)
but 1st backup any/ all files.
you should be able to physically remove your HD and set it up in a temporary HD portable unit. and usb-plug it into a linux machine and simply mount it, and copy all of its contents. (file by file too, but i would recomend folder by folder)
then, after all is saved. try to get a 2nd pc for a hundred bucks or less.
run linux on it. and try to use it as much as possible.
the more you run in this env. the more you will grow (happier), and only time will give you experience with what to do.
i don't know a whole lot of coding, and i have gone through some dark times, but with this os, i have never been happier. (or content)
i almost puke every day i run windows at work. from the terrible focus settings to simple guis that are retarded and lacking in simple tasks left out)
every year i run linux, i gain knowledge exponentially.
every time i run windows , i lose precious time in my life (well, at least i get paid for it). (maybe i grow more patient too).
so, to summarize, i would suggest to ignore anyone who bugs ye, (like people who refuse to help), would you really want someone to help you w/out any desire for success ? )
and try other distros.
knoppix is great, but so are many others ( my fav is mandriva, but redhat was my 1st and always in my top 5)
i am using knoppix live cd/ b'c i can run it at work when no-one is the wiser of what im booting into. (when i can get away w/it) and my best linux system is.
kernel 2.6.27
running e16
this is not easy to get here, but its so worth it
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...sandbackgr.jpg
that is e16
a minimalist window manager, (prefer it over e17)
notice the center menu, is from my mouseclicks, and i can change backgrounds from a 1 click operation (ok, 2 clicks, 1 for the menu, 1 to select it).... and running gkrellm (since 1999) also a atho and proc meter (i really don't need btw)
this setup is all used from 2 mousebuttons.
no icon, no panel, not needed. its all 1 click away
so, i got off on a rant.
hope it helps or at least inspires 1 person to be happier.
btw, i just finnished my 1st attempt at my own distro on Monday night. (more to come) (try to do that in windows)
here is my precious eterm (w/out borders this time) reporting my windows partition.
this is where you can be, happy in a linux environment, and a dedicated partition (that can be coppied) for windows (when you get this working. you can watch windows start and load in a terminal window, while you watch movies on linux....
i can even watch windwos crash, and reboot while never turning off my pc
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...dowspartit.jpg
you can notice, i deleted windows btw..muhahaha
"but heres my point.
try the links above. (at your own risk)
but 1st backup any/ all files.
you should be able to physically remove your HD and set it up in a temporary HD portable unit. and usb-plug it into a linux machine and simply mount it, and copy all of its contents. (file by file too, but i would recomend folder by folder)"
Not sure what you mean by the above?
Can I remove the damaged hard drive from my computer, buy a new hard drive, install it, and then install Linux on it, reinstall the damaged hard drive as a slave, and then transfer information to the new hard drive? Is this possible?
Is Linux available as a download as a permanent installation on a hard drive? If so, can it be burned to a cd or dvd and then installed on the new hard drive?
Sure, that would be one way to recover all of your files. Others would include backing up to another computer on a network, or even burning CD or DVD backups (which I suspect you are now wishing that you had). These are far from the only options.Quote:
Originally Posted by marmeduke
One slight point of clarification. If you have an IDE drive it can be a slave. But if you have newer SATA drives then the drive can not be a slave. But it can certainly be a second drive on another SATA connector And given the price and capacity of SATA drive and the rapidly vanishing IDE drives, I suggest that any new drive that you buy should be SATA. Add an inexpensive SATA controller if your current system lacks SATA connectors, it will likely still cost less for the same capacity as an older IDE drive. If you do this the IDE drive stays a master, not a slave, but you can still boot from the SATA and use the IDE as a second drive.
Sure, there are plenty of Linux "distros" intended for install on hard disk. See distrowatch.com for a few hundred options. I suggest Debian, which Knoppix is based on, but it is far from the only choice. Debian is available as an install CD (and I suspect an install DVD), but I find it even better to download the smaller "net-install" CD, boot that, and install most of what you want for Debian directly from the Internet. And, of course, one you have a Debian install, you can easily install any of the programs that are included in Knoppix, or select from many many more in the Debian repository.Quote:
Originally Posted by marmeduke
Quote:
Originally Posted by marmeduke
absolutely.
but its very likely you dont need a new HD;
if you only have a registry issue, or virus, or other windows / software related issue, your original HD is fine, and can be overwritten.
unless the HD has a broken head, or cracked platter, it should be fine.
if this HD was mounted in a linux computer, you could browse the entire filesystem, play music from its directory, and yes, copy/ paste it into anything else (usb drives, or another location on the linux partitions (/home is common, or /home/username/docs or music etc.)
and like above, many many distros are availible, and are very different.
i think the best/ easiest is Mandriva 2010, or for power, RedHat (they all have equal power, - su-).
the only distro i hate is Ubuntu. (its just disgustting on so many levels)
You may not be able to reinstall the damaged hard drive as a slave with the step you mentioned. Even if you can, I highly recommend not to do so. If I remember correctly, you mentioned that your drive got infected by virus. So I highly recommend you refresh you hard drive completely with an overwritten MBR and reformat the whole harddisk.Quote:
Originally Posted by marmeduke
I will suggest you do it the following way:
1. Backup the data first.
If you have 2 pcs and a home network setup already, you can boot knoppix on the damaged machine, depends on what OS the other machine has, transfer the files over to the good machine. Check out the following link to see how to do this
http://knoppix.net/wiki/Network_Shared_Drive_FAQ
If you do not have 2 pcs, try to buy or borrow an USB thumb drive or an USB external hard disk Boot up the damaged machine with the knoppix cd or dvd, insert the USB drive, then mount the damaged hard disk as read-only, mount the USB drive as read-write. Then copy the files over to the USB drive.
2. Wipe the MBR, re-create the disk partitions and then reformat the damaged hard disk
You can do it 2 ways, on Linux or under ms-windows base boot disk.
If you have a Windows PE boot disk or a DOS boot disk, boot it up and run the command:
Then use the fdisk command again to create disk partitions.Code:fdisk /mbr
Then use the format command to format the harddrive.
On knoppix, do the following (assume your hard disk is hda, but it could be shown as sda as well)
Use the fdisk command to create partitionsCode:dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
Then use the mkfs command to format the harddisk. Don't remember the exact syntax on this command. You need to look it up in the web.Code:fdisk /dev/hda
3. Install the OS you like here.
I used to have 3 partitions on my harddisk, one for Windows with NTFS, one with Linux (Ubuntu) with EXT2, one with no OS but is formatted to FAT32.
The FAT32 partition is used as a buffer area to transfer files between two OS. (i.e. both Linux and Windows can read/write on FAT32 partition)
I will install Windows XP first, then install Linux. I think it will be easier for you to have both Linux and Windows on the machine so that you still can perform some tasks if you cannot find the correct software or command to do it in Linux, just switch back to Windows and have it done.
But if you really want two OS on one machine, make sure you install Windows first, if you do it the other way round, Windows will wipe out the MBR and you will not be able to boot up Linux.
4. Copy all the backuped files on the USB drive back to the newly formatted drive.
5. Done.
Rgds,
Chip
You have already got several answers here, so I just want to tell what I usually do with a new laptop:Quote:
Originally Posted by marmeduke
1. I remove the harddisk, insert it ito an external USB cabinet
2. I mount a new, blank drive
3. I boot the PC with Knoppix, from CD/DVD or USB drive
4. I use fdisk to partition the drive, usually 5-8 partitions for multi-booting etc: 1-2 NTFS, 1 FAT32, 1 persistent Linux ext3 for storage, 1-3 Linux ext3 for distro install (Suse, Fedora, Mandriva, Knoppix, Ubuntu, whatever) 1 Linux ext3 for /usr/local.
5. I run mkfs.ext3 or mkfs.vfat to format the partitions (not NTFS!)
6. If there is something to backup, I back it up from the USB mounted drive to FAT32 or Linux storage (or DVD). Here I could also use the network. Normally, I don't attempt to write to NTFS.
7. I install Windows from scratch
8. Usually I install a Linux distro, to have grub, the good Linux bootloader, in place
You could do the same, and get a safer and more robust life with Windows, routinely booting Linux and make backups. Or, as I do, install vmware and run Windows in a virtual machine. Even safer.
In any case, you should do the backup before you eventually try the registry editing trick.
I've listened to you all about the registry editing. I purchased a new computer. It came with Windows 7. I now have 2 questions; one of which has been touched on. I want to safely move some of the data from the old hard drive to the new one. I want to do this without exposing my new system to the virus. 2) I'm leaning towards making a partition on the new system hard drive and loading a linux based os there. Can you speak to the advantage to doing that? I'm also still pondering going fully with a linux based system also. I presume this would mean fomatting the hard drive and starting from scratch? Thanks again to all the great help. Colin
You should be able to do that pretty straightforwardly enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by marmeduke
- 1. I suggest using FTP, which is faster and easier than Windows networking. If you want to go this route, install a free FTP server on the Win 7 system. Configure it. Connect the computer to a local network.
2. Connect the old system to the network. Boot the old system in Knoppix, the virus will no be running so it can not attack the new system.
3. Move the files that you want to save to the new system. I used to use Korquror as the FTP client to do this, but Konquror is said to be missing from 6.2. Any browser should work though, or even the command line FTP client.
4. Don't move applications unless you know what you are doing and are certain not to run them on the new system until you confirm they are virus free. It's better to reinstall the applications and just move data.
5. To be extra safe, scan the new system with a virus scanner after the transfer.
The problem with doing this is that your new hard drive on your new system is likely taking up 100% of the disk and leaving no space for extra partitions. And it is not easy to shrink a partition safely. You would be better off adding a second drive (they are dirt cheap if you shop around a little).Quote:
Originally Posted by marmeduke
Yea, you would need to re purpose the hard drive. This might b a great thing to do with the old system, after you have recovered all of your data, since that infested drive is going to need to be erased anyway. DIf you choose to install Debian, during the install process Debian will give you the option to use all of the hard disk, if you select this and let the install deal with things automatically it will repartition the drive giving you a Linux partition and a swap partition (although you are free to play with this and try other parttioning options).Quote:
Originally Posted by marmeduke