Sooner or later it will happen
to you. One day you'll turn on your PC and it won't boot. No matter how
many times you desperately retry, Windows simply won't start up. All the
time you will be thinking "why didn't I backup my data."
The good news is your data is
probably OK; it's just that you can't get to it. Unless of course your
hard drive has died. In that case maybe you really should have backed up
your data :>)
Assuming your hard drive is
OK, you can access your data and copy it onto removable media or another
PC using a bootable rescue CD. With a bit of luck you may even be able
to use the rescue CD to fix the problem with your PC and get Windows to
boot again.
A rescue CD works by allowing
you to launch an operating system directly from the CD so you don't need
Windows to be running on your PC. From that CD-based operating system
you can then access your hard drive and all your files.There
are lots of rescue CDs available based on different disk-based
operating systems. Some use DOS or a DOS clone such as FreeDOS. Others
use Linux, but my favorites CDs make use of a cut down version of
Windows called the Windows pre-installation environment, the best known
of which is Bart's PE [1].
Of the half dozen or so rescue
CDs I have in my tool kit, the one I use most frequently is UBCD4Win
[2]. It's a Windows-based CD that uses Bart's PE Builder to create the
operating system. What I like about it is the huge range of tools
included. Yes, you can set up a Bart's PE disk yourself with the same
tools or even more, but it's not a simple process, while UBCD4Win comes
ready to go.
One of the many valuable tools
on the CD is the free imaging program, DriveImageXML, that allows users
to create and restore images of their disk drives.
It is particularly valuable
because it allows you restore an image of the drive containing Windows
even if your Windows system is not booting. For this to work, though,
you must have created an image before your system failed. That's a topic
I covered in this month's editorial.
You can even setup UBCD4Win to
boot from a flash drive, providing of course that your computer's BIOS
supports USB drive booting. Personally I think you are better off with a
CD. CD booting is supported by all but the most ancient PCs and a CD is
only marginally less convenient to carry than a flash drive.
By far the easiest way to
create a bootable UBCD4Win rescue CD is to order the preparation CD from
the UBCD4Win website [3]. It contains everything you need except the
Windows installation CD that came with your PC. Note that the
preparation CD is not a complete ready-to-go boot CD but rather the
components you need to build one. However, full instructions are
included. At $5.95 for US customers and $7.95 International it's a
bargain. Hey, you even get a free CD burner program thrown in!
If you are too impatient to
wait for the CD to arrive by snail-mail or too stingy to pay the $5.95
then you can download the various files from the UBCD4Win website [2].
The instructions on the website are excellent. Be aware, though, that
the download is around 230 MB and the boot CD building requires around
2.5 GB of free disk space.
If files that big sound too
daunting then try one of the many Linux based rescue disks [4]. Many are
smaller and simpler to set up; just download the ISO file and burn it
to a CD. The popular Ultimate Boot CD [5] for example is an 87 MB
download. Usage though can be a little daunting for those not used to
the Linux environment but there's an excellent Linux rescue disk guide
for Windows users here [6].
Whatever option you choose, do
take the trouble to set up a bootable rescue CD. One day you will need
it. This, I can assure you.
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