How to make a bootable USB drive?

[KoRn]

If it’s a Windows machine, I would recommend building a Windows based live CD. I highly recommend a ‘Bart PE’ CD. As long as the HD is good, you should be able to offload any data to a flash drive.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

I prefer this paticular live CD when I’m working on computers because it recognizes most hardware and you can get them prebuilt with lots of helpful utilities.

IMHO, The Linux based live CDs are best left for hacking.

[Woodman]

If you mean by DOS a command line interface, I believe you. True DOS can only read FAT AFAIK.

[lrb111]

self

[jacksonstate]

If you have 128mb of ram or better you can simply run an iso disk of puppylinux and let it load to ram then take the disk out and write whatever you need to save onto a cd-r if you have a burner. You can boot from flash if the kernel is 2.4 or better and the bio will allow it.

I run Macpup and Wnop 0.2 pup on just about every thing without a hitch and it is easy to recover things. Puppy linux is awesome! The newest version has great wifi detection.

[ShadowAce]

[birddog]

The easiest thing to do is take the harddrive out and slave it into a working XP or vista machine. The working OS will discover the disk, check it to make sure there are no errors (which somethings even fixes the boot sequense).

Then you can capture the media files, burn them to a cd or DVD.

[Still Thinking]

Why not just take the hard drive out and slave it to another machine, either in a USB drive enclosure or on the internal IDE of a desktop? There is a little card (about $5) that will allow you to connect a 2.5” laptop drive to the desktop size IDE cables. I don’t know about every laptop, but all the ones that I’ve had you could have the HD out in under five minutes.

[w1andsodidwe]

Yes this is what we use.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Can a linux bootable CD save her media files to another folder or to another usb drive?

Yes. You'll need to mount the hard drive after booting from a LiveCD like Mepis or some other distro. Then you should be able to insert a USB drive...you may need to mount that as well. Then it's a drag and drop process.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

For a bootable USB, here is a utility to do it:

http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm

To access the hard drive from a usb, I use this:

http://www.byterunner.com/byterunner/category=USB+2.0+to+IDE+Adapters,+USB+2.0+to+IDE+Cables

[perfect stranger]

Thanks for your help. the laptop is an Acer. It will boot to the desktop, but once it's there the touchpad doesn't work- no cursor movement. Not even with a mouse plugged into it.

I have an Ubuntu disc and it will boot to that and the touchpad and mouse respond just fine that way. Using Ubuntu I have no idea how to get to the C drive to find the mp3 files and pics.

The directions for the recovery disc that came with the machine says to back up any files that I want to save, so that option is unworkable.

There's a way to do this I know, But I haven't figured it out yet.

[perfect stranger]

I’m giving that a try right now.

[Big Giant Head]

You’re in good shape if you’re able to use Ubuntu. Linux doesn’t call it a “C” drive, it’ll be called hda or something like that. It should list the size of the drive so you can recognize the “C” drive by how big it is.

Poke around, you’ll get it.

Another thing, if you can boot to the desktop, but no mouse or cursor movement, you can still navigate around the OS by keyboard commands.

[perfect stranger]

you can still navigate around the OS by keyboard commands.

I tried that without much luck. it gave me a headache. LOL Trying ubuntu again. Thanks.

[Big Giant Head]

I'm looking at PCLinuxOS, but the folders are pretty much the same. I click the Home House, and on the left pane, down the far left side, is a red flag icon services tab, second from the bottom, and then there's a Storage Media, click that, and there's whatever size Hard drive Media.

If you click on one and see a folder inside of that that is called windows you're there. Look for your files in that Hard drive.

[Big Giant Head]

I got distracted (by my lovely bride bringing wine and a glass, heh). If you have a thumb drive plugged in, you should see it as one of the “Media” drives. Drag your files into that just like in windows.

[perfect stranger]

Sorry, I see no ‘services’ tab.

[Big Giant Head]

Do you see the little red flag?

I’m booting my other computer into Ubuntu BRB. I’ve got about twenty Linux distros!

[perfect stranger]

No flag. Thanks

[Big Giant Head]

My apologies, I haven’t booted Ubuntu for a good while. at the top, under Places, you should see about 2/3 of the way down the list of whatever ‘media’. That’s where you look. If you see a list of folders with “bin” and “boot” you’re probably in the wrong place. You should see folders that you’d see in Windows including a folder called Windows, and Program Files, etc.