Operate from bootable cd?

Is it possible to create a bootable cd with enough operating system on it to access the hard drive and back up data files over a network? XP has hard crashed on this machine and after 6 hours with support and trying different things, they said reformat and reinstall. There are some data files that were created after the last back-up and I have to get them before formating.

 

Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows
Knoppix Linux Click on the American\English flag at the upper left for an English version of the page.

Both work great but I prefer the firt one. It comes with tools specifically for repairing windows installations.

Knoppix has the advantage of being easy to create. Just download the iso file and burn it to a cd. It can be used for recovering files you want to save. It's not to good for writing to NTFS formatted drives though. There is a driver for writing to NTFS drives but I find it not very reliable. It can however read NTFS and burn the files you want to save to a cdr.

ubcd4win can both read and write to NTFS drives. It also comes with burning software. It also has the added benefit of being much the same as Windows. It's only caveat is it's a bit more difficult to create but if you follow the instructions it should be no problem.

Both have no problems that I know of as far as reading and writing to FAT32 formatted disks.

 

If you decide to use Knoppix (or other bootable Linux distros), DO NOT write to NTFS partitions even if its allowed. You can get a corrupt NTFS partition for free. Reading from NTFS, reading/writing FAT/FAT32 is ok.

 

You could also use an imaging program like Acronis True Image or Ghost to image the drive and then you can browse the image to pluck any files you like from them.

If you don't have an imaging software, it would be a good investment since it could prevent you getting into this predicament in the first place.

Good luck.

 

I downloaded and created the cd no problem . I'm going to give it a try tomorrow or the next day and see if I can get the files transfered. I would love to be able to fix the existing install, but I don't have any idea of how to go about that.

Thanks for the help and fast response.