Recover Files Even If You Can’t Boot Into Windows!

Did your computer ever crashed to the point where booting back into Windows was near impossible? This could be a problem if you still have important files that you need to pull off the hard drive in case you need to do a full reformat or if the hard drive itself will soon malfunction. But how will you be able to save the files if all you see is a black screen nagging you about a missing system file or if it keeps rebooting the moment you log in to your account? If you are a novice, one of your option could be to bring it to a local computer repair shop in hopes that they can help you recover the file. However, this can be really expensive. You can instead follow the instructions I’m going to detail here to make your own bootable CD that will allow you to boot into a Linux environment which will then allow you to save all of your important files to another storage device! All of this can be done with ease.

You might be wondering if this applies to users who regularly backup their data because why would you need to save an important document if I already have a backup? That is a good question to ask and my answer is ‘yes’, you should still learn how to rescue your files in the event that you cannot boot back into Windows. Reason being is that sometimes computer users can’t distinguish between what files are important and which are not until the situation calls for it, as in this case, a non-bootable Windows hard drive. You may initially thought that some pictures you had stored on the hard drive wasn’t important until it struck you that you may never, ever, be able to look at that picture again. Even if you consider yourself the ultimate ‘data backup shinobi ninja’, it still could be to your advantage to learn about this technique when you need to help out with a friend or family member who needs the service.

Without further introduction, I bring you, Puppy Linux! Huh?! Don’t worry, I’ll explain it in more details. In short, Linux is a operating system, just like Windows. However, it isn’t created or managed by Microsoft. There are many, many versions of Linux and different users prefer one over the other. Best of all, many Linux versions are free of charge! That’s right, you can freely download them, burn it to a CD/DVD and install it on your computer for personal use! A very popular distribution of Linux that have made it to a lot of personal computers is called Ubuntu. If you want to learn more about it, I suggest you visit their homepage.

Ubuntu is a full blown operating system but what we need is a version of Linux that is lightweight, gives us the ability to do a ‘live’ boot from the CD, and ease of use. For that, I recommend Puppy Linux. The entire operating system is less than 100MB in size! That allows for a quick download. It also permits us to boot into a ‘live bootable environment’. This is completely safe as everything is running in your computer’s memory and the CD. So, nothing on your hard drive gets erased. It is also very easy to use, considering all we need it to do is give us access to your hard drive. If you are still confused as to what we are accomplishing by using Puppy Linux, you can think of it as it giving us a ‘platform’ or an ‘environment’ to load into (because you can’t boot into Windows) so that we can somehow access back our hard drive to save the files to another thumb drive or external hard drive. That’s all there is to it. You don’t have to learn to use a brand new operating system and nothing will get deleted. Worry not! Obviously, if your computer has already crashed, you will need to download and create the bootable CD on another computer. Therefore, it is highly recommended that you make the Linux disc now and keep it in a safe place before anything actually happens to your computer.

You can download the latest version of Puppy Linux here. As of this writing, the latest release of Puppy Linux is version 5.0.1 and that is the version I am demonstrating here as well.

# Burning the file to a CD
Once you have downloaded the Puppy Linux file, you’ll get one resulting ISO file. You will need a burning application to burn this ISO file to a bootable CD. If you have Nero, that will work. If you don’t have any burning software available, then you can go the freeware route by downloading either ISOBurn or CDBurnerXP. Insert a blank CD, fire up the application (for CDBurnerXP, select the option to burn a ISO file to disc), point to the ISO file you have downloaded and then burn it. The process should be really fast as Puppy Linux is really small in size.

# Set your computer to boot from the CD drive first
Now you will need to set the boot order of your computer so that it will boot from your CD/DVD drive first, instead of the usual hard drive. When you turn on your computer, it usually displays the key that you need to press in order to get into your BIOS, which allows you to set a host of other things besides the boot order. The BIOS is a very dangerous place to mess around because one wrong setting and you can render your entire computer useless. Once you are in the BIOS, look for the ‘Boot Priority’ setting or something similar. Set it so that your CD/DVD drive is set to number one in the list. Save your changes and reboot your computer with the Puppy Linux CD inside. If you’re lucky, some computers allow you to set the boot priority without needing to go into the BIOS. They display the options for you and you simply select which drive you want to boot from.

# Configuring Puppy Linux
You will know what you did above was correct because you will now be greeted with the Puppy Linux boot screen as shown below. It will then proceed to boot and will copy the main files to your computer’s memory. Do not be intimidated by all the words you see on screen as it’s just a way of letting you know what’s actually happening under the hood.

Once that finishes, you will be presented with the next screen which asks you what type of keyboard layout you are using.

The next screen will ask you to specify the country you are currently residing in.

Next, specify your timezone.

The last step is a little bit more complicated as you’ll be setting up the video driver to be used. In the video wizard, it’s best to select the “Probe” option and then manually selecting the resolution and monitor type that best matches your computer screen and video hardware.

Once you have made your selection, it’s best to test it first in case something goes wrong. Don’t worry, if the option you have selected doesn’t work and you’re left staring at a black screen, the resolution will be reverted after 60 seconds and you can try another option afterwards.

# Transferring files from your main hard drive to another external drive
Once you got the right resolution, Puppy Linux is now properly configured and you should see the desktop! Don’t worry about all the icons plastered all over the place. The only area you should concentrate on is the lower left hand corner. Here is where all of your hard drives and partitions will be represented. Linux uses different terms to describe a physical hard drive and partitions. For example, if you only have one physical hard drive installed, it will be labeled SDA. If you have another one, it will be labeled SDB and so on. The first partition on the first hard drive will be represented as SDA1, the second SDA2, etc. If you click on a drive icon (one click to open, not two!), it will then be “mounted” so you can access it.

If you don’t see the drive or partition icon, click on the Mount icon near the top and you’ll be presented with a window containing all of your hard drive and partitions. Simply find the right one and mount it.

Once you have found the right partition containing your Windows operating system files, you are now ready to recover your files. If you haven’t already, connect your external hard drive or other removable storage to the computer. Puppy Linux should detect it. Once again, clicking on the corresponding drive icon will automatically mount it and open the root folder of the drive. Now all you have to do is drill down to the location where your important files are residing in and simply drag it over to your removable storage. It’s that simple! In this screenshot, you can see the top window contains my Windows partition while the bottom window contains a new folder I have created on my USB thumb stick to store the files I need to recover.

Because we are booting Puppy Linux from a CD/DVD, we are bypassing the Windows operating system directly. Therefore, we are allowed to access all the files in the Windows partition, regardless of the permissions set on them in Windows itself. However, you have to remember that encryption is a totally different story. For example, if you used the Encryption File System under Windows to protect some of your sensitive documents, Puppy Linux will still allow you to recover the files to your removable storage. However, you will not be able to open the files unless you have the right certificate. This is why you should always back up your EFS certificate and store them in a very safe place. Without it, you have just basically locked yourself out of your own files.

As you can also see, anyone with direct physical access to a computer can easily use Puppy Linux maliciously to bypass Windows, therefore bypassing any file permissions and account log on, to steal a copy of your data. Encryption is a good way to render your data useless to a data thief. You just have to make sure that you use encryption properly and know how to actually recover your files in case your computer goes haywire.

# Repair your computer
Now that you have gotten your important files off the hard drive, you can safely repair your computer by actually fixing the bootup problem itself or reformatting your computer entirely. You can of course also bring it to a local repair shop but at least now you don’t have to pay an extra fee for asking them to help you backup your data!

As you can see, this little application can be a life saver. I have helped so much people by using this method. What usually happens, as you can guess, is that they have never backed up their data before and now that the computer crashed, they are running around in distress wondering how they are going to pull the data (some people do not believe its even possible) out of the hard drive. Although a unbootable computer can be a real hassle, the most important thing is that you get all of your data out safely. If it will be a while until the repair technician can fix it, you can in the mean time still work on that PowerPoint project on another computer so you don’t miss the deadline. If you have created a system image, which I wrote about in details, you will be up and running in no time!