Windows XP on a usb key

Gavin · 22 Aug 2008 at 09:26

One of my friends daughters laptops has gone up the swanny, ive got a feeling its a hard drive failure as she dropped it.

But in case it isnt can i put xp on a usb key boot fro the usb key and then see if i can navigate the drive to find her pictures and see if there savable?

I googled it quickly but there does seem to be any straight forward solutions although im sure ive seen windows xp for usb here before..

EDIT right ive managed to build my own iso with bart pe..... and the laptop boots from the usb key but there isnt much i can do with the preset programs.

and i cant browse the laptops own internal drive any ideas?

All i want to do is browse the files and save them onto cd....Anyone help me here.... AS its making me pull my hair out.

JC · 22 Aug 2008 at 09:31

Get a ubuntu live CD, boot off that, browse the drive and save anything you want onto disc/usb

JRS · 22 Aug 2008 at 10:44

Gavin said:
EDIT right ive managed to build my own iso with bart pe..... and the laptop boots from the usb key but there isnt much i can do with the preset programs.

and i cant browse the laptops own internal drive any ideas?

As you said:

Gavin said:
ive got a feeling its a hard drive failure as she dropped it.

If the HDD is shot, then you aren't getting anything off it.

You can try a Linux LiveCD as JC suggests, if the drive is able to be accessed at all then that'll allow you to get the data you want off it. But if BartPE couldn't even see it....

Vince · 22 Aug 2008 at 10:49

Take the drive out, put it in a £4 usb caddy. jobs a goodun.

swinnie · 22 Aug 2008 at 11:44

VinceB1 said:
Take the drive out, put it in a £4 usb caddy. jobs a goodun.

Not if the hard drive is corrupt.

Vince · 22 Aug 2008 at 11:49

True say... in that case curl up into a ball and cry!

Tosk · 22 Aug 2008 at 13:36

if the hd is corrupt or its dropped its partition, you could recover the lost files but you would
need another drive to recover the lost files. just search google for a windows recovery program.

Vince · 22 Aug 2008 at 13:49

Easy recovery professional is pretty good!

bledd · 22 Aug 2008 at 14:08

burn slax to disc (it's a bootable linux disc), small and works

swinnie · 22 Aug 2008 at 14:43

bledd. said:
burn slax to disc (it's a bootable linux disc), small and works

+1

Slax is my linux boot disk of choice. As bledd. said, it just "works".

Gavin · 24 Aug 2008 at 13:45

sorry for late reply......managed to create a partition and install windows took like 3/4 hours so def something uup with hard drive then when i tried to run easy recovery pro or getdata back the machine just froze or rebooted.

Plus the bios is now randomly picking the drive up and the bios's own drive test is failing it within 1 minute.

The person is now telling me they have insurance with pc world and will take it there.....

hmm wonder if they can get anything off it......Dont think insurance covers getting data back though? in fact i thought there insurance was about as good as a chocolate teapot

manic111 · 24 Aug 2008 at 14:00

Or Puppy Linux...only 50mb and did the job for my brother's PC last week!

bledd · 24 Aug 2008 at 14:26

bledd. said:
burn slax to disc (it's a bootable linux disc), small and works

Dangerous Dave · 25 Aug 2008 at 09:18

Gavin said:
sorry for late reply......managed to create a partition and install windows took like 3/4 hours so def something uup with hard drive then when i tried to run easy recovery pro or getdata back the machine just froze or rebooted.

Plus the bios is now randomly picking the drive up and the bios's own drive test is failing it within 1 minute.

The person is now telling me they have insurance with pc world and will take it there.....

hmm wonder if they can get anything off it......Dont think insurance covers getting data back though? in fact i thought there insurance was about as good as a chocolate teapot

My drive did this after I dropped my laptop down some stairs, if they haven't already taken it to PC World as suggested use a linux live cd, I used a ubuntu live CD. I got all my data off the drive to a USB drive but very slowly ! before replacing the drive. PC World will not recover the data they will just replace the hardrive.