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The time now is Mon 10 Mar 2014, 06:42 All times are UTC - 4 |
 Forum index » House Training » Beginners Help ( Start Here) |
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Dead windows OS, need to retrieve files from drives
Moderators: Flash, Ian, JohnMurga |
 
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bhruss
Joined: 27 Nov 2012 Posts: 7 |
I have a Dell XPS Gen 5 that has a corrupt OS, can not be booted. I have been looking for a way to access the files and save them onto a CD to transfer to a new system. I was referred to Puppy from a user on the Geeks forum. I was told Puppy might be able to help with my problem and allow me to save my files before I trash the system. Can anyone help me with this? Is it possible to do? |
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Flash
Official Dog Handler  Joined: 04 May 2005 Posts: 10565 Location: Arizona USA |
Do you know if the machine will boot from a CD? |
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rcrsn51
 Joined: 05 Sep 2006 Posts: 8532 Location: Stratford, Ontario |
You are going to need a working Windows computer to set this up along with some CD burning software that can work with "images". Then download a Puppy ISO file. A basic one would be Wary Puppy. |
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bhruss
Joined: 27 Nov 2012 Posts: 7 |
I have another computer with CD RW that is working. I was going to download the software Barry specifies for doing ISO on cd's. Just wanted to verify it would work and maybe how to go about it after I download Puppy?? |
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bhruss
Joined: 27 Nov 2012 Posts: 7 |
Yes, I can boot the windows cd, but it is a cheap Dell restore cd, and I don't want to wipe out my files. So I should be able to boot Puppy on a cd. I want to remove the files and then new hard drive and re-install OS. It is actually my wifes system, she has a lot of family pics she doesn't want to lose. |
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Bligh
Joined: 08 Jan 2006 Posts: 484 Location: California |
Put the hdd in an external drive enclosure and access it from any working computer. preferably linux. Cheers |
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Flash
Official Dog Handler Joined: 04 May 2005 Posts: 10565 Location: Arizona USA |
Yes, if you're going to replace the hard disk drive anyway, you could go ahead and do it now. That way, there'd be no danger of destroying data on it as you learn how to use Puppy. Having said that, it would be perfectly safe to boot Puppy from a live CD and have a look in the drive while it's still in the computer. |
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bhruss
Joined: 27 Nov 2012 Posts: 7 |
I installed puppy on a cd, and booted it from the cd rom. I then moved all of my files from the Raid array to my bigger storage drive in the old system. Now all my wifes pictures are stored on the good drive, It appears the computer suffered hard drive failure, because both hard drives in the raid array are 160 GB drives, Drive 1 shows up as 47 mb (yes, mb not gb), drive 2 shows up as 128 gb, and the other storage drive shows up as 749 gb. So much for the raid configuration allowing you to boot the computer in the event of hard drive failure. The dang thing copied the errors onto both drives, Windows XP was corrupt on both of the raid drives. Now, how do you change the screen resolution in puppy? The icons are huge and I can not see some of the items on the desktop because they are outside the viewing area of the screen. |
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Flash
Official Dog Handler Joined: 04 May 2005 Posts: 10565 Location: Arizona USA |
Which version of Puppy did you try? Newer versions seem to do a very good job of automatically configuring for the hardware. By the way, just to be sure, is this a laptop we're talking about, or a desktop? And how much RAM is in it? |
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Atle
Joined: 19 Nov 2008 Posts: 281 Location: Oslo, Norway |
I got a second hand laptop with two HD and raid. It was just impossible to install anything to this machine as the driver for the raid was not present under even Puppy Linux 5.2.8 or Linux Mint 13 for that sake. Taking the disk out and installing Windows did not work neither, as the drivers for the raid needed the hardware present to be installed. I think, when I booted this machine from a Puppy 5.2.8 from USB, Puppy accepted the drives and I could actually install it. That said... It was Grub4dos that did not recognize the drives due to the "funny" RAID... Since then I run Puppy on this machine as a home entertainment center, as it has a nice large 17 inch screen. The reason i write this is that you might want to just try to install Puppy to a bootable USB flash drive and either install Puppy to one of your drives or simply run the machine from the USB and automount the disks so you can use it for storage... There is many ways to go about this, but as for me... Puppy Linux 5.2.8.005, was the solution and it also might be that for your wife. I suggest yuu make the desktop a bit more "feminine" for here and make it personal before presenting it. The Windows files can just rest where they are until she has figured out what she wants to save and you shall live happily  ever after
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bhruss
Joined: 27 Nov 2012 Posts: 7 |
Dell XPS desktop, 4 GB ram. Wary Puppy 5.3 |
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bhruss
Joined: 27 Nov 2012 Posts: 7 |
I plan on letting her try the Linux and see if she likes it. She is the type of person who will actually try to figure something out and give it a fair try before she says no, so I am pretty sure she can figure it out. I got her files safely onto the storage drive and now I can mount that drive into another computer I have and she can pull them from there when she wants. Had to order an adapter though, my system is IDE and the drive is SATA. Once I have the adapter I will put the storage drive into my system and then she can access her stuff while she plays with puppy. |
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rcrsn51
Joined: 05 Sep 2006 Posts: 8532 Location: Stratford, Ontario |
When you run Wary, there is an initial screen where you get to choose your resolution. But it may be confused by your particular video card. Since it sounds like you plan to keep using Puppy, the next one I would try is Slacko Puppy 533. |
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Atle
Joined: 19 Nov 2008 Posts: 281 Location: Oslo, Norway |
I can not speak for what choice to make when it comes to Puppy, as for Slacko or what what... Me I stick to what always works... No bla bla bla about PAE or choices to make... Just boot and run. And that is Puppy 5.2.8. No matter what Puppy i try, its not a cross over one as I have plenty of laptops. Like the latest Official is just a step backwards to me, as its not a "works everywhere every time" kind of a puppy The thing here is that once you got one CD or even use a Windows program to create a bootable USB... You do not NEED the converter for SATA drives as the files can just stay on the disks you have present. No need to move or pay anything. Just boot it up, clean out one drive using Gparted, and then move the files you like to keep from the non deleted drive to the one you just deleted and made into NTFS or whatever, and your clear to go:-) Adapters from SATA to USB is not for free... Puppy on a USB flash drive that you probably already have, is FREE... You can also use any device like a Mp3 player, mobile phone with flash memory or even a digital camera, as long as its detected as a drive.-) Buy your wife flowers in stead and go creative:-) check this out... Many other program that does the same and will save you a SATA to USB converter and also a CD http://rufus.akeo.ie/ |
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rcrsn51
Joined: 05 Sep 2006 Posts: 8532 Location: Stratford, Ontario |
I looked at Rufus and it's very nice. But it has the same problem as other installers like Unetbootin. If you look on the flash drive at the file syslinux.cfg or isolinux.cfg, there is a reference to "pmedia=cd", even though you are not using a CD. The flash drive will still boot this way. But for best performance, you should change it to "pmedia=usbflash". |
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Dead windows OS, need to retrieve files from drives
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