laptop HD recovery

stevejazzx

Problem:
This is a little bit strange so bear with me.
My dad brought me over his laptop last night. He bought it from Laptops direct last year and it has winxp pro on it.
However clever guy that he is he wanted to put windows media center on it so used a demo cd he had. The new os(wmc) didn't seem to install properly as after it finished there didn't seem to be any differnece i.e he had the same os and in my computer properties it siad win xp pro on it, not wmc. The probelm however was that he entered a new serial key when upgrading from xp pro to media center. It was demo a cd key that needs to be activated. So i told him to bring the laptop over to me and I'd back up his stuff from his hard drive, format and reinstall win xp pro but the probelm is that now the activation period with windows has expired and it's impossible to log into the desktop to do the backup.
I'm wondering what the best solution is for retrieving the data from the hd and reinstaling.

Solutions:?
*I have a laptop but I think it might only have 1 hd drive bay(there is only one hd installed currently) so I don't think I would be able to just hook it up to that because I would have to remove my hard drive in which case there would be no os to boot into and retrieve the data from.

*I have thought of trying to access the recovery console on my dads laptop and trying to move files in dos fro the laptop hd c:/ to a portable 20gig usb hard drive, is this possible?

*Would it be possible to install another operating system on my dads laptop in a different partition?

Sorry about long post Advice appreciated!

Tom Dunne

You have a number of options:

Boot into Linux usuing a live disk (i.e. don't install Linux, just boot into it). You should then be able to read the files and copy them to either a CD-R or a memory stick.

Take the drive out and put it into a 2.5" external caddy. Plug it into a free USB port on another machine and copy the files over that way.

*I have thought of trying to access the recovery console on my dads laptop and trying to move files in dos fro the laptop hd c:/ to a portable 20gig usb hard drive, is this possible?

No, I've tried before. The recovery console is very limited, it won't allow you to access other drives, from what I have seen.

stevejazzx

thnaks tom

never used linux, is a live disk just a bootable linux os? and when i get in instead of burning to cdrom etc can i just move the files to a usb drive
How do i make a linux live disk?

thanks steve

otherwise i'll use the 2.5 caddy idea

Tom Dunne

stevejazzx wrote:

thnaks tom

never used linux, is a live disk just a bootable linux os?

Yes, the idea being you don't have to actuall install anything, just boot into a fully working version of Linux from the CD/DVD.

and when i get in instead of burning to cdrom etc can i just move the files to a usb drive

Yes.

stevejazzx wrote:

How do i make a linux live disk?

Go to your nearest newsagent and purchase a Linux magazine with a cover disk.

Or you can download a version from teh interweb. I've used Knoppix before without problems.

stevejazzx

cool
that sounds like a lot less work than removing drives etc!

jor el

Final option: Boot from the XP Pro CD and do a fresh install, but don't format the hard disk. Just over write the existing fcuked up install (don't select upgrade either). That should do the trick without loosing anything.

stevejazzx

hi

downloaded knoppix and ran it stalls each time at

'pcmcia found starting cardmgr'

am I doing something wrong or should i just get another version