I have a pretty big predicament. I need to format my computer, however the files on the computer are really important so I would like to copy the files to an external drive prior to full out formatting. Problem is that I cant get into Windows and need to find some sort of bootable CD program or something like Emergency Boot CD that would allow me to do this... any help would be very much appreciately... ps: can I do this using Emergency Boot CD? and if so, how? Thanks in advance!
Why not remove the drive from your PC and make IT the external drive, then use another PC to copy the files over?
That is way too involved... and I only have the one computer so it would be a hassle, a boot disc like I decribed has to exist... I even want to say the Emergency Boot CD does it... I just don't know how to use it properly...
It's basically DOS. You use the windows CD to boot the recovery console and start copying files around in there. That only works to hard drives the PC recognises though, as there is no means to write to CDs in DOS.
how do you do this with a vista disk/installation vs. XP? Thanks for your help! Also I am backing up to an external HDD, thanks!
I've never tried unfortunately, so I can't help you personally on that, but have a read of this: http://xtreview.com/review207.htm
you can use the free gparted livecd, it will let you make a copy of a partition and paste it on another hard drive. http://gparted.sourceforge.net/index.php
Try booting from a Linux CD and see if it reads your hard drive. You should be able to copy everything out to an external drive.
