hello again all,

assume I can not log in to the windows installation, (maybe) because of a system file corruption or failure.. however, I do log in to the system using the windows CD with R (repair) mode, that is the command line prompt.

Is there a way in that command prompt to copy the files that I want to an external hard drive, like flash drive?

the R-repair mode would only see the windows installation drive, that is c:\

what is your suggestions in that case? how would I at least back up the data files if I can't log in to windows?

(Once I copy and back up the crucial data to an external drive like USB, then I am planning to re-install windows)

thanks in advance.

It might actually be a lot easier to do this with a 'live cd' version of linux.

how would it be?

You could mount the Windows' partitions as readonly NTFS then copy their contents to a network server using scp.

what is the su password on a live CD linux?

hello porter,

I am having hard time to get the scp command to work.

how do we specify the destination for the scp command, what is the host in that case? remember, this is a windows network, so it has a work group and computer name. on linux live cd I can see both.

(I am trying to backup the files of a crashed Windows XP to another computer on the same network that runs Windows too. I use the linux live CD on the crashed computer)

the command I did was:

$ sudo scp Windows/* computerName:SharedDocs/Backup
ssh: computerName: Name or service not known
lost connection

I was in this situation a little while ago. I removed the C drive, installed another disk and reinstalled XP on the new disk. Then I mounted the old C drive as a D drive. The old drive was in bad shape from a hardware standpoint, but I was able to copy some files that I wanted from it.