This morning tech tip...as in, I'm doing this right now

[Alan H]

When your PC won't boot....and probably (haven't tried this yet) when your Intel Mac won't boot...whatcha' gonna do?

In my building they say..."Who ya gonna call?" The kilt guy. But ANYWAY....

One thing you can do is boot up your computer with a Knoppix CD/DVD. Knoppix is a pared-down version of Linux that runs entirely off of the CD. Actually, these days it's not so pared-down! ANY-way, You downloads the files and then follow the instructions to make the bootable CD or DVD. You need to do this BEFORE the PC goes down and won't boot, or do it on another working PC with internet access and a working CD/DVD burner. It pays to just grab Knoppix, make the CD/DVD and put it away in a drawer for peace of mind.

power up the computer...maybe have a backup USB external hard drive plugged into your computer, and powered up. Get into the Bios, however you do that, and choose the "boot Menu". Have the computer boot from the CD drive. Be patient, the CD is slower to read-write than a happy and healthy hard drive.

Once it boots up, you can use a utility called PCMan file manager to look at your Windows files. You'll find PCMan file manager in a little icon in the bottom left corner. If in fact the files on your hard drive show up, that means that your hard drive is in fact "working". The Windows boot sector may be messed up but your files are there.

So now you can open another PCMan window, and find your external USB hard drive. Drag your precious files; pictures, music, My Documents, your Desktop and so on, the the USB drive. Then breathe a sigh of relief....at least your files are now backed up.

there's little point in backing up your applications, unless you have some really old legacy applications....like DOS apps meaning stuff carried over from Windows 3.1. Just copying the application files will "probably" not make the applications run-able, if you copy it/them back to a restored hard drive.

If Knoppix can "see" your hard drive, then that means that the drive itself is almost certainly fine. It means that the drive controller is fine. The most likely scenario is that the Windows boot sector is messed up. So go find your Installation or repair CD, and run your Windows repair utility and cross your fingers.

The nice thing about Knoppix is that it's free. It's also great if you've been curious about LINUX and wanted to get a look at it without committing to it by installing it on your computer.

If your Windows install DVD repair function fixes the issues, then *great*. You probably won't have to copy your files back again, and now youve got a spiffy backup. But if it doesn't, and you have to reinstall Windows fresh, you can restore your files from that USB drive. To do that, finish up your Windows installation. Run automatic updates at least 3x....seriously. There are often "updates to the updates" 'and you want to get them. Then plug in your USB external drive and power it up. Boot the computer from the Knoppix CD/DVD and drag your files back onto your hard drive.

Knoppix site....

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

There are other ways to do a backup and restore, like using Symantec Ghost, for example. Also, there are built-in backup utilities that come with Windows Vista and Win 7. These do backups....not necessarily restore, though...and there are cool 3rd party Windows backup utilities like EZBackup and Karen's Replicator. However, if you haven't gotten one of these installed or on-hand, and disaster strikes, as long as you have access to the internet and another PC handy, Knoppix is free and quick to get. Also, Symatec Ghost is a *great* product, but it stores your files in an "image" format (*.gho). Those aren't exactly always "human readable"...meaning you can restore your computer, using Ghost, but you can't actually see what's in there until the restore is done. With Knoppix, you can see exactly what is going on.

cheers!

[Alan H]

I'm working on a Postdocs machine as I write this, and backing up about 150 gigabytes worth of confocal microscope images to his new external USB hard drive.

Just a heads-up....Knoppix doesn't always display the actual size of Windows files correctly. There. Now you know.

BTW, when you load LINUX/Knoppix, you also have access to a mess of utilities, like Open Office. Knoppix contains drivers for many/most network adapters and video cards, so the odds are very good that while running Knoppix, you'll have a full-color display and a network connection. So if you are REALLY in a bind and have a super-tight deadline, you can open up MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint files, and edit them. You can transfer them to a thumb drive, or mail them EVEN....yes, I've done this on a computer with burned-out USB ports......

...give your screen presentation to the class/Board of Directors, opening up your MS Powerpoint file with the Open Office application, and project it through a projector. Got Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator files that you absolutely HAVE to work on RIGHT NOW? Knoppix comes with "Gimp" - a pretty darned compete drawing and illustration application that happily opens up Adobe files.

[janderson]

Excellent write up. I do tech work for a living, server admin now, and a linux boot cd has helped a few times in the past.

Word to the non-techy rabble though, be wary of free advice. What has been said is true and accurate, but be sure you are familiar or comfortable before doing anything based purely on a message boards advice. Call it tech karma speaking here.

[madmacs]

Knoppix rules... Of course the files you just copied onto the usb drive might be harbouring the virus that took down the pc in the first place...

[usonian]

Knoppix is invaluable for low-level OS problems like that. Ubuntu Linux also has a "Live boot" distribution (actually, I think they may have built that into the CD installer itself; it boots into Ubuntu Linux and then gives you the option to actually install it.) Thankfully my parents have switched to Macs which tend to get themselves into unbootable states a lot less often, but I used Knoppix to live-boot and rescue files from dying hard drives and irreparably broken Windows installs on more than one occasion!

[Joshua]

If Mac won't boot it's OS:

Press and hold the following keys at boot:

Option - Displays all bootable volumes attached to the system
Shift - Boots in macs version of "Safe Mode"
C - Boots from a CD/DVD
T - Boots to FireWire Target Disk mode (to transfer to another mac with a FireWire transfer cable)
N - Start from an OSX netboot server
F - Forceboot
Command+S - Single user mode (basically a text-only unix prompt).
D - To boot the Apple Hardware Test
Opt+Cmd+P+R - reset NVRAM (very useful if your system goes wonk after a memory upgrade or time change, etc...)
Command+R - OSX Lion recovery

I'm afraid there isn't much a liveboot CD can do for most intel macs. There just isn't alot of troubleshooting that can be done from outside the OS. Any boot issues not solved with the above steps usually indicate hardware failure. And, if your mac HDD is encrypted like mine, you'll probably do considerably more harm than good.

I use linux boot disks for much more nefarious reasons (I'm an Endpoint security engineer), like grabbing encryption keys, local admin passwords from the SAM database, etc...