Linux boot CD for data recovery?

[chucky2]

I've never had to do this, but, I've got a couple of old computers here with PATA drives, while no rig in my house has those connectors anymore. The newer rig has a straight out bad hard drive, so whatever is on it is unrecoverable. The second rig is even older, and has an AT style keyboard connector.

I'd like to put the second rig drive in the newer PC and boot to Linux using a bootable CD, and then copy any of their data to USB drive (they think there might be older pictures on there).

Anyone have a suggestion on something they've used that would do this? I tried Knoppix boot DVD...it won't boot on the newer computer.

Chuck

 

[Elixer]

Hmm, any "live" distro should work...

What do you mean by, it didn't boot ?
BIOS didn't see it, or what ?

 

[ArisVer]

Not any live distro will work. It depends on your hardware. Try the Xubuntu 32 bit CD. It still requires at least 256MB of RAM.

 

[chucky2]

Hmm, any "live" distro should work...

What do you mean by, it didn't boot ?
BIOS didn't see it, or what ?

It tried to boot, but, in the end it just gave an OS Not Found or some such message.

Not any live distro will work. It depends on your hardware. Try the Xubuntu 32 bit CD. It still requires at least 256MB of RAM.

Cool, will try that out tonight if I get off work early enough. If not definitely tomorrow night.

Chuck

 

[ArisVer]

Better check your BIOS boot options. I haven't searched about Knoppix but it looks like it does not find the boot disk (CDROM) and probably tries to boot from the HDD.

 

[chucky2]

No those are good, you could see it trying the DVD it just ended up not working. I did this without the bad hard drive hooked up. For all I know the PATA DVD drive is bad too...who knows...

 

[ArisVer]

It could also be a bad written DVD disk.
Since you are trying to get data off the HDD you should have it connected. Unless you are planning to hot-plug the HDD after it boots...

 

[HarrisonHill]

Wrong thread, sorry

 

[chucky2]

It could also be a bad written DVD disk.
Since you are trying to get data off the HDD you should have it connected. Unless you are planning to hot-plug the HDD after it boots...

It was more I couldn't stand the clicking of the bad hard drive when I did the test boots of the Linux DVD so I just unplugged it. I figured it should either work or not...and it didn't work.

Got the CD of Xubuntu 32 burned last night, will give it a try tonight.