__/ [Martin Underwood] on Tuesday 20 September 2005 20:42 \__
> "Michael Hopkins" <michael_hopkins@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:n2ZXe.19742$hQ4.11267@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Hi,
>>
>> Windows ME on my PC died completely (I know...), but the basic hardware
>> is
>> still good.
>>
>> I now have a new PC (currently running Win2k, although planning to
>> upgrade
>> to XP-Pro). I only bought a new actual tower, so am still using the old
>> monitor, keyboard etc.
>>
>> How can I extract any data from the alive and well hard-drive of the
>> 'dead'
>> PC? I am thinking in terms of files in my documents, word templates, OE
>> address book, old OE e-mails, IE favourites...
>>
>> Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Please use words of one
>> syllable!
>
> If the PC had been capable of booting and if it had a CD writer, you could
> have copied the data onto CD and then onto the new PC. Even without a CD
> writer, you could have used a pen drive in the USB port, but that usually
> needs Windows: you may well not be able to access the pen drive if you
> boot the PC into DOS. I wonder whether it might be worth doing a repair of
> Windows ME from the installation CD to get the PC into a state where
> Windows will run and you could use a pen drive or CD writer.
>
> If it won't boot, I think you're going to need to take the hard disk out
> of the old PC and connect it temporarily into the new PC. If you don't
> feel confident to do this (and although it's straightforward, if you don't
> know what you're doing you could damage the disk or PC) I suggest you take
> the two PCs to a computer shop - PC World can probably do this, but if you
> know of a small independent shop you might try that in preference.
>
> You will need to copy the My Documents folder and also the Application
> Data folder - when you've got the disk in a state where you can view its
> contents, you want to search for *.dbx files (email) and a *.wab file
> (address book). IE favourites are in \windows\favorites and can be copied
> to c:\documents and settings\<username>\Favorites on the new PC.
I also suggest that you consider the Knoppix Live CD <
http://www.knoppix.org/ >. It will enable you to start up the computer from
the CD-ROM, accessing your hard-drive from a windowed environment and
recooperating all the data. You can burn a CD, send the data via the
network or set aside the affected data in a partition of its own. Data
recovery experts would often do the same, but if you want to give it a go
yourself, order the CD, which may even be free. The Ubuntu Live CD will be
sent to your home for free. I am fairly sure it is still the case.
As far as I know, no Windows Live CD exists. Fetching your files from DOS,
as I once did 4 years ago, can be a hard process which does not support
long filenames (probably still the case), is rather slow (parallel port
PC-to-PC) and is is effort-consuming. I still have the DOS tool, so if you
are interested, let me know.
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Previous signature has been conceded
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux | PGP-Key: 74572E8E
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