who you going to call, what are you going to do, when windows won’t boot

Dear ThatDamnPc readers: My name is Mary and I’m one of b5media.com’s newest bloggers. I’ve enjoyed using Windows since the first KayPro computer, which was ‘CPM’ machine and the forerunner of the first windows’ computer: the Osborne, both ‘laptops’ of the 80s.

Aaron Brazell, the original founder of ThatDamnPC.com and other b5media blogs, including TechnoSailor, told me he has also explored this technique of recovering a PC.

Disclaimer: please do not attempt the following on YOUR personal computer. I did so on my PC only because I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. The following is an example of what I did to recover my computer, after I had stupidly disabled my ability to do anything else. I used this method of PC recovery in January, 2006, and it worked for me, but I definitely don’t recommend it.
Did you know that Linux is a friend to Windows, especially when you need to troubleshoot or fix a file that is preventing Windows from booting up?

I found this out in January, the hard way. One day, I ruthlessly changed a file in my system32 directory (bad, bad: NEVER do this!) rebooted (oooh …. stooopid… talk about over confident) and I ended up with… nothing! not even a login prompt!

Windows xp wouldn’t boot! so I thought, oh, okay, just do a system reboot, go to last good boot… that didn’t work either… so I rifled through my xp boot disks, found the right one, and booted to my xp CD and decided to use the ‘recover’ option and was stopped cold by a password request… long ago I forgot my administrator password. (most xp home users only have one account and that was ME). I tend to do things in a simple fashion….

okay, so what to do? I could reinstall windows over my working version: not a fun way to recover, in my book. (after all, I didn’t want to lose all my customizations of Windows.)

So, I went to Digg (the place to find ome of the best resources on the web), searched for password recovery, and downloaded the bootCD found at bootdisk.com and used the excellent instructions at: Forgot your password?.

Long story short: I recovered completely and I was back up, where I was before said crash, without ANY LOSS of data or my system.
I used the full CD bootdisk too. It is mostly linux, but with menus that are easy enough to understand! even for someone who tends to forget to note a windows administrator password!

Linux saved the Windows XP day! and my bacon! Do I back up now?… well, yes and no. I just purchased an external hard drive, a Seagate 160Gig USB 2.0 external storage device, a steal at ~$90 from CompUSA two weeks ago. This week, you can find even more external drives at ridiculously low prices: example: a 500 Gigabyte external hard drive, with USB 2.0 connectivity sells for $199 this week (no rebates required) from MicroCenter (9 stores nationwide).
I’ll couple the external hard drive with a decent back up program that I’ll find at BetaNews.com, a software site with user rated programs and tracked by number of downloads. A good rule of thumb is to never download unrated software without a large user base. Recently, Panda Software identified a fake video codec, Zcodec, as a malware which downloads trojans and key loggers to its PC host. The lesson of Zcodec’s fiasco is: never download unknown, unrated software, even if its parent website appears genuinely authentic and legitimate.

What is your favorite back up software? and why? Please send in your brink of destruction story. Exploding laptops, exploding batteries, exploding hard drives, and monitor meltdowns …