Linux Live CDs

Posts Tagged ‘repair’

My laptop’s hard drive corrupted and I cannot repair it without paying money that I don’t have at the moment. I’m taking a long trip very soon, and would like to be able to use it (the laptop). I’ve used a few distros in the past, but they were very confusing, and never booted from an USB drive. My CD/DVD drive is broken, so it has to be USB bootable. Would like an intuitive interface, and as much windows-compatibility as possible (i.e. can open .doc, .exe, etc.) Also, if I could just get the distro files themselves (skipping the whole torrent the .iso, burn it, then copy it to the USB), that would be amazing! Torrenting is actually out of the question. Anyway, if there is a distro that fits all (or most) of the above, what is it?

I repair Windows machines often with KNOPPIX; it’s the easiest way for me to get a clean OS running so I can blow away viruses. However, KNOPPIX 5.1.1 shows its age, as it failed to work on a computer I recently went to service due to the computer being “too new.” KNOPPIX 5.2 is a DVD-only release and so is not particularly useful to me. I’m also looking for a USB-based self-contained Linux. The problem is that the number of choices are staggering: SLAX, DSL, MEPIS…it’s hard to pick one. I’d be primarily using it for command-prompt-based repairs on Windows machines, but I’d need X11 and a browser like Firefox available as well. Having ntfsprogs and ntfs-3g are crucial, and having the “dd_rescue” command would be a very good thing as well. Failing all this, having a guide to rolling my own would be a nice thing to have. I’ll be booting this on anything from a Pentium II to a brand new Core 2 Duo, so a RECENT kernel and drivers is fairly vital.

So, what “live” distros should I check out in my search? And please don’t say “Ubuntu.” It’s the worst Linux distro I’ve ever seen in my life, and horribly slow on top of all that.

I tried to troubleshoot a Dell computer with the Windows XP media center edition. Windows appears to be starting up, but it reaches the welcome screen and stays there. I tried booting from a Symantec recovery disc from a Norton Systemworks Premier package in hopes of restoring the most recent settings, but the software couldn’t see the hard drive. I tried to repair the installation with a Windows XP OS CD, but it didn’t seem to see the hard drive, either. I thought I could at least leave an Ubuntu Linux live CD so the owner could access the Internet, and after it loaded, it could see the hard drive. I tried to click on the main partition, and the following error message was displayed:

Cannot mount volume.
Unable to mount the volume.
Details
$LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0,0) Failed to mount ‘/dev/sda2′: Operation not supported Mount is denied because NTFS is marked to be in use.

There was more, but I’m running out of space. Is there any way to get back into Windows as it was?

Linux Slax. This video discusses installing Slax to a USB flash drive or hard drive.

Knoppix Hacks: Tips and Tools for Using the Linux Live CD to Hack, Repair, and Enjoy Your PC

• ISBN13: 9780596514938
• Condition: USED – GOOD
• Notes:

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