Rescue Data from Unbootable Windows PCs

System RescueCD is a Linux based system rescue disk which is available as a bootable CD or USB stick image. This means you're able to handle files from its environment even if your system is installed with Windows OS. It comes with lots of Linux tools such as parted, partimage, fsarchiver, file system tools, text editors etc. It comes with up to date kernels to provide support for recent hardware and also for all important file systems (ext2/ext3/ext4, xfs, btrfs, ntfs, reiserfs, vfat), as well as network filesystems (samba and nfs). It can used without installation as it can boot directly from CD/DVD, USB or a network disk. First, you have to download and burn SystemRescueCd from http://www.sysresccd.org/. If you can't boot System RescueCD from a CD ROM, install it on a USB stick and boot from it.

Step 1: After booting up, select the mode in which you want to start Systemrescuecd. If you want to run it in command mode, select default or select graphical environment to work in graphics mode.

Step 2: When it starts it will let you perform your entire rescue tasks in GUI mode. Here, first select the tool Gparted to see all partitions and their size. If you do not find this tool in the main menu then go to Run Program option and type Gparted. You can also resize, delete or change partition type here.

Step 3: Now you need to create an image of the partition which contains your data. Click on system option in the menu and select partimage tool. Here, you can easily create any partition image of your drive by selecting the partition and give the path under /mnt/xyz which creates the folder xyz and stores your partition image. You can restore that image later to other PC or hard disk by selecting the option restore partition from image file.

Step 4: The data from a specific drive can be stored to other computers over the network by mounting the specific partition.

Follow the following command to mount the partition:

root@sysresccd /root % fsarchiver probe -v

<=====DEVICE=====> <==FILESYS==> <=====LABEL=====> <====SIZE====>  

< 25.00 GB> < 8> < 1>

<120.00 GB> < 8> < 5>

<70.00 GB> < 8> < 6>

Now, to access data from any partition run below command

partition label

ntfs-3g -o ro /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows

After this run this command to mount the partition and see the list of directory inside that partition.

cd /mnt/windows

ls -l

Step 5: Run the ifconfig command to see the IP of your crashed computer. Note that IP and install Filezilla or winscape to the other PC where you want to save the data over the network. Open winscape to give IP and password of Systemrescuecd. To change or set the password in rescuecd open terminal and type passwd.