The aim of this document is to show you how to rescue data from a hard drive that will not boot up. This method can be used after trying the ???official Microsoft solutions??? of using the ERD etc.
If rescuing the data is the main objective, I'd use this before fooling around with the PC any more.
If a hard drive is having problems, you want to get access to it and get what you can from it before it refuses to spin up. So on with the Rescue.
You need the following:
Attach the USB HD to the PC. Turn on the USB HD.
Boot with the Mepis CD. You may have to go into the BIOS and change the settings to allow booting from the CD-ROM drive. If rescuing a laptop, make sure you are using the power supply and not the battery.
Read the info on the screen. Hit enter.
Login as root. The password is root. Username and passwords are case sensitive.
Left Click (once only) on the Mount Partitions icon. (Unlike Windows, you only need to click once)
Look for /dev/hda1 ntfs. (This is your hard drive. C:, if you were trying to rescue a Win 9x PC instead of ntfs it would read fat or fat32. )
Right Click, scroll down to Mount Device and Left Click.
Right Click and scroll down to Open in File Manager and Left Click. Wait a few seconds, a window will popup with the contents of /dev/hda1 ntfs. If you have multiple partitions, scroll down till you find the right one. Another way is to open each one in File manager.
I've found it helpful to change the view at this point to the Detailed List View. Next drill down to the User folder under Documents and Settings.
Move the window to the Left side of the screen.
Next you will mount the USB HD. Look for /dev/sda1. Depending on how many partitions you have on this HD, you may also find /dev/sda2 etc. (I've found having a fat32 partition makes things a lot simpler.)
Mount /dev/sda1 and open in file manager. Right Click in that window and Create New Directory. I prefer to name it username-todays date (tmarx-213004 for example).
Resize both windows so they are side by side (/dev/hda1 on the left and /dev/sda1 on the right)
Left Click and drag the files/folder you want to copy and drag it to the /dev/sda1 window and click on Copy Here. Thats how simple it is. I've found it helps to start by copying the most important stuff first (.doc, .xls, .pdf, .pst, .ppt, .mdb files). You can ask the customer for that info. I copy no more than 128mb at a time, if you try to copy more than ?? the amount of RAM in the PC, the process tends to stall.
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*Formatting edited by Warren*