So your hard drive was damaged and you can't get Window's to boot up?
Don't despair! All is not lost.
You still have a chance to retrieve important files stored on your computer and you can do it yourself at no cost!
The solution burn and use a Linux "live CD" boot your computer and access the files on your computers hard drive.
Linux you ask? Isn't Linux for geeks, too complicated for average users like me?
The answer is no. By following this step by step guide you will have access to your files in by following the easy steps below. (note: this method will work assuming the part of the hard drive where your files themselves are saved has not been damaged).
- Find a computer with an internet connection and a CD burner
- You will access to the internet and a CD burner to burn your live CD.
- Download and burn a "live CD" (called an ISO) from Ubuntu's website
- Go to this web address (for this tutorial we will be using Ubuntu, a widely used version of Linux, but other free distributions would work as well).
- Download the Ubuntu “Desktop CD” from http://ubuntu-releases.cs.umn.edu//6.06/. Choose the PC (Intel x86) desktop CD option. This file will automatically save to the desktop of the computer you are using.
- Burn this file (and only this file) to a blank CD. If you need help burning a cd from an .ISO file, check out this hand guide from Ubuntu’s website.
- Insert the CD into your damaged computer and turn the computer on
- The computer will automatically boot from the CD and your computer will run the Ubuntu version of Linux. The computer will not boot from the (damaged) hard drive but right from the files on the CD. Things might run a bit slower than you are used to but you will be able to do anything you normally do with your Windows system.
- Mount your hard drive
- This is the most complicated part of this process. The Live CD is not configured to give you access to your hard drive but you can change that with the following easy steps.
- From the menu on the top of the screen, navigate to Applications > Accessories > Terminal
- This will open up a window where you can paste the following commands (pressing return after each line)
- sudo mkdir /recovery
- sudo umount /dev/hda1
- sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /recovery -o nls=utf8,umask=0222
- Navigate to your files
- Click on “Places” > “Computer” from the dropdown menu
- Click on the disk image ending in /recovery. You should see a list of your Windows files (start by clicking on documents and settings, this should put you in familiar territory)
- Copy them to the internet or a USB device
- Plug in a USB device, its image will appear on your desktop.
- You can either drag or copy and past your file (avoid cutting and pasting).
- If your computer has an internet connection you can also email files to your self or use any other method of internet storage.