Rescuing Windows with Linux
July 28th, 2009One of the great things about Linux is the sheer variety. Some are great for servers, some for netbooks and some are just there to fix problems.
A Windows computer I use recently died in a big way, it booted and seemed to be starting but then died with the infamous blue screen saying something about ‘Cannot boot from the disk’. Not having the original CD with me I was in a bit of a jam to fix it just from Windows.
Fortunately I have SystemRescueCd on a disc so I booted the computer from the CD to see what I could do.
I decided to start the X server (typing wizard to start) as I’ve never used it before so decided it might be easier with a GUI. A few seconds later I had a fast, responsive XFCE desktop with a bunch of tools to try. First up I used TestDisk to rewrite the mbr followed by GParted to rewrite the partition table.
Unfortunately none of this actually got the computer to start Windows so I decided it was time to replace the computer but not before I copied the important documents off the hard drive.
Back into Linux and I soon mounted the hard drive and inserted and mounted a flash drive. In no time I had found all the files and copied them off to the flash drive ready to copy over to the replacement computer.
Linux may not have fixed the underlying problem but at least it enabled me to get at the hard drive so I could copy off any files I wanted (while conveniently ignoring windows file permissions as a bonus!). It’s at times like this that I’m glad to have a bootable CD with me, or even better a bootable flash drive that will be my next test.
