How to make USB boot file. Need Computer Help

[DJL 232]

I've put a couple/many of hours into this and can't figure it out. I have a software crash on a XP Professional laptop from which we need two files in order to not have lost a lot of work. Original disks are long gone.

I need to make a boot USB that will allow me to install an OS in a new partition so that I can access the existing files (does that sound right).

I modified bios to boot from USB but I'm still having trouble making a boot drive. I've done this before with linux on a cd but I'm missing something. XP won't allow me to create a MS-DOS startup disk through its formatting process. Any way around this? Any way to make this more simple.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[theonlyski 3]

Quote

I've put a couple/many of hours into this and can't figure it out. I have a software crash on a XP Professional laptop from which we need two files in order to not have lost a lot of work. Original disks are long gone.

I need to make a boot USB that will allow me to install an OS in a new partition so that I can access the existing files (does that sound right).

I modified bios to boot from USB but I'm still having trouble making a boot drive. I've done this before with linux on a cd but I'm missing something. XP won't allow me to create a MS-DOS startup disk through its formatting process. Any way around this? Any way to make this more simple.

You can download any *nix flavor thats usb or cd bootable, and with an external hard drive, copy everything you want off of it.

What crash are you talking about? Safe mode help any?

"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

[hookitt 0]

This is much easier. If the drive is still good pull it out of the computer. Either slave it as a second drive on another computer or put it in a USB dive bay and plug it into the USB port of another computer. Poof, there's all your data.

You can pick up the drive bay at Fry's or Best Buy or an equivalent store.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[turtlespeed 212]

Quote

This is much easier. If the drive is still good pull it out of the computer. Either slave it as a second drive on another computer or put it in a USB dive bay and plug it into the USB port of another computer. Poof, there's all your data.

You can pick up the drive bay at Fry's or Best Buy or an equivalent store.

They call that an Enclosure, right?

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[theonlyski 3]

Yes...

My way is free and faster, but that will work too...

"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

[DJL 232]

Safe mode got me through to the C00028 message:
The registry cannot load the hive (file) \SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE
or its log or alternative. It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.

It's a laptop, otherwise I'd slave it in a second. I could go to radio shack and get the 36 prong adapter to turn it into an external.

Really, there's something I'm missing about making a boot disk. If I could just find the linux boot disk I made a while back then I'd be OK. Can't get around XP not allowing me to click on the "Create an MS-DOS boot disk".

FUCKING WINDOWS!!!!!!!!!!!!

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[theonlyski 3]

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

You can download, it tells you how to put it on a flash drive and you can access all your files most the time.

You can even generally plug it into your home network and copy the files off of it via file sharing.

"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

[turtlespeed 212]

Quote

Safe mode got me through to the C00028 message:
The registry cannot load the hive (file) \SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE
or its log or alternative. It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.

It's a laptop, otherwise I'd slave it in a second. I could go to radio shack and get the 36 prong adapter to turn it into an external.

Really, there's something I'm missing about making a boot disk. If I could just find the linux boot disk I made a while back then I'd be OK. Can't get around XP not allowing me to click on the "Create an MS-DOS boot disk".

FUCKING WINDOWS!!!!!!!!!!!!

have you tried to go to your manufacturers website and see if you can download it.

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[theonlyski 3]

Something about his registry is fucked up

the manufacturer wont have any way to fix it other than re-install...

"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

[hookitt 0]

Thanks. I'll try your way next time just to do it. I do have a bootable USB already set up. I just happen to have 2 drive bays a bunch of laptops and desktops here so It's quick for me.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[turtlespeed 212]

Quote

Something about his registry is fucked up

the manufacturer wont have any way to fix it other than re-install...

Boot disk has "repair" it gives that option before you install.

just type "r"

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[tier 0]

Ultimate Boot CD is usually a decent move and it can load from a flash drive. Lots of handy tools on there including data recovery which is what you're looking for.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

[theonlyski 3]

Ive never seen that work... hey, its not my data at risk

"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

[theonlyski 3]

UBCD is good, but there is no GUI like most people expect... moving files and folders in a dos type window isnt something thats as easy as it looks sometimes.

"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

[rhaig 0]

http://www.knoppix.net/

--
Rob

[drunk 0]

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

[mdrejhon 8]

Quote

It's a laptop, otherwise I'd slave it in a second. I could go to radio shack and get the 36 prong adapter to turn it into an external.

Did you know laptop hard drives are often much easier to remove than desktop hard disk drives? They are usually popped out by a single screw, due to design for easy upgrade.

No need to open up the laptop or casing, like you have to for desktop computers. (Unless it's an Apple laptop, or certain subnotebooks such as Sony Vaio P series)

Most modern laptops (made in the last 5 to 7 years) have very easy-to-remove hard disks, that can be instantly removed by a single easily-accessible external screw. It may not even void your laptop warranty if it was designed for easy upgrade. Google for your laptop's manual to double check. Turn your laptop upsidedown. One rectangular panel is covered by a single screw, or a pull-out hard disk drive at the edge of the laptop, is held in by a single screw. Check your laptop manual to determine which panel you need to remove to easily pop-out the hard disk. (Lost manual? No problem! Download the manual. They've all been converted to PDF.)

I used an adaptor I got from a computer store to temporarily plug my laptop hard disk drive to a USB port in my computer... It appeared as an "F:\" drive, which I could browse normally, copy files off, etc.

Then I put the laptop hard disk back into the laptop, reinserted the single screw, and the laptop was back exactly the way it was...

Also, once you've rescued your files, do an XP recovery to reinstall XP on top of XP. That usually resurrects a corrupt registry, although you might have to probably reinstall some (not all) of your software.

Example of "quick and dirty" USB cable for laptop hard disk drives:
http://www.cooldrives.com/seatatousb20.html (SATA only)
http://www.newertech.com/products/usb2_adaptv2.php (PATA and SATA)
Cost is about $35

I recommend an adaptor similiar to the latter, as they support nearly all laptop hard disk drives made in the last 10 years. Perfect tool to keep in your chest, whenever a hard disk goes inaccessible due to operating system corrupion, or that you need a fast way to copy an old computer's hard disk, etc.

I have also outside external bootable operating systems, rescue CD's, but I found that removing the hard disk and this gadget was at least 20 times faster to get things done. In one case, I was done in only 5 minutes and I was copying an important file a minute later...

[marcandalysse 0]

That's a cool adapter!
I have a ten year old Dell desktop in my garage, with Win95 loaded on it. I couldn't 'plug and play' my external drive into it to take off files, but I am guessing I could do the opposite and use an adapter to plug the internal drive into a usb port on my current laptop? The file format is probably FAT32 on the old drive.....that would make the files transferable am I correct?

thx
marc

"The reason angels can fly is that they take themselves so lightly." --GK Chesterton

[DJL 232]

Thanks. Giving that a try. The owner also just found that she has a 3.5" drive that I can put a Win 98 disk into. OR...I like this excuse for buying that thing Mark posted.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[theonlyski 3]

Ive got an adapter similar to it that I picked up at Frys when I was in houston a few months ago... You can plug just about anything into it and copy to/from the hard drive.

Yes, as long as your computer was made in the past oh, decade... it should read your FAT32 hard drive with no issues.

ETA: I paid like 10 bucks for mine and it does the same thing with less cables... Ill see if I cant find one around the interwebs to send you a link to

"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

[mdrejhon 8]

Quote

That's a cool adapter!
I have a ten year old Dell desktop in my garage, with Win95 loaded on it. I couldn't 'plug and play' my external drive into it to take off files, but I am guessing I could do the opposite and use an adapter to plug the internal drive into a usb port on my current laptop? The file format is probably FAT32 on the old drive.....that would make the files transferable am I correct?

Yep. As long as the hard disk is not malfunctioning.

All modern Windows (Windows7/Vista/XP) supports FAT32 on external hard disk drives. In fact, you can even manage read the data off a 20-year-old IDE hard disk drive that's in good old MS-DOS FAT format. If the drive is lucky enough to still spin-up properly, and the computer BIOS supports configuring for it too.

Should work fine with any adaptor that supports PATA (parallel ATA -- like good old IDE -- in variants that frequently include UDMA 33/66/100/133). The connector on most of these 2.5 inch drives is a miniaturized 40 pin IDE connector (small version of desktop ribbon cable). Most late 90's era and early 00's laptops are PATA hard disk drives.

Both desktop and laptop connectors are already built into the adaptor in the last link I posted. So the adaptor is pretty much universal for almost any IDE/EIDA/UDMA/ATA/SATA hard disk ever made, both desktop and laptop form factors.

For laptops, depending on model, 10-year-old laptops MAY be harder to open - meaning hard disks somewhat more difficult to remove (i.e. need to remove a few more screws), but the hard disk should work perfectly like an external drive, with that thingy. I own one of them too and it always come in handy. My oldest laptop of the bunch is a 2003 Dell and it is still designed for easy HDD removal (one screw), so it's 7 years old.

For old laptop, google for your laptop's manual and download it, preferably if you can also download the Service Technician Maual or Repair Manual or whatever they call it (Dell provides them, for example) that gives you step-by-step disassembly for things like hard disk removal.

Short story: With the adaptor, any old hard disk drives 'magically' behaves like a thumbdrive. Once the cables are connected -- bam -- drive letter just shows up (if the hard disk is not defective). File copying becomes pleasant child's play.