Please see item #7 in this link, although other links may help you too.
Hi - I am a poor soul who bought a computer from a techie. 1 year later Microsoft shut me down without a warning due to a "registration" problem. How was I to know the tech bootlegged my OS? Well it is what it is. So now hating Microsoft, I went online and found this great free OS.
Loaded it and....absolutely nothing happened. I get my Vista screen from which I am locked out. Please help me so I can retrieve my real estate photos and rent my property! And if you could, talk slowly because I am computer challenged. Thanks!
Please see item #7 in this link, although other links may help you too.
---
Verifying of md5 checksum and burning a CD at slow speed are important.
I'm sorry but I didn't see anything that applied to my situation.
I think he was complaining that your choice of subject heading was not helpful!
And I think that your implication that youo stole your version of Windows won't win you many friends either. But to answer your real question, yes the Knoppix CD should enable you to recover the data from your hard disk. If you've downloaded or otherwise got hold of a 'live-CD'of Knoppix. booting that will get you to a pretty desktop with a picture of some Austrian mountain. There should also be some icons on the desktop, one of which will be your hard disk file system. Double click on that and you should see your files in a file-manager window, from which you can copy them to a flash or USB device. If any requests come up to 'mount' the hard disk, agree to this. Good luck!
Thanks Royal - that was very helpful. I did Buy the disk from OS.com as I do Buy whatever I need. I Paid good money for the desktop and had No idea the OS was pirated.
Nothing appears on my screen except the Vista opening screen sowhen I try to boot from the disk I guess I'll have to move on.
Buh bye
dumbblonde, you shouldn't be getting the Vista screen. It may be that the BIOS on your PC is still set to boot first from the hard disk. You'll need to change that so it boots from the CD.
http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Download...should_I_do.3F
try link above

IBM Prototype ES/9000 Mainframe Computer MCM CPU Vintage White Ceramic Gold
$1000.00
IBM MST-2 370 Integrated Circuit Computer Chips Lot Of 43 Rare 1970s Vintage
$249.00
HP 5060-8359 8K Semiconductor Memory Module 5080-9747 Vintage HP Computer
$165.58
Vintage Telex 952003-112 Mechanical Terminal Keyboard IBM 3270 Mainframe DB25
$679.15
VINTAGE RARE Overland 9 Track tape drive for mainframe computer storage
$800.00
Vintage IBM #192726 Paper Tape Punch Mainframe Computer Programming Tool 1960s
$94.95
DEC ALPHA DS20E system complete, posts good. 512mb, no disks, Digital Equip Corp
$699.00
Vtg IBM Mainframe Prototype Chip Module Lot 146 pc 1988-1993 ES/9000 Lab Arcive
$649.00
SONY VAIO PCV-C12L Pentium 4 3GHz 3GB 120GB SSD NO/OS Retro Desktop Vintage PC
$129.97
MPC ClientPro 545 Pentium 4 2.40GHz 512MB NO/HDD RV100 Vintage PC Retro Computer
$149.97