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Linux can save your data (NewsForge)
Chris DiBona uses Linux
for data recovery in this NewsForge article. "There are a lot of
reasons to use Linux. You've seen people write or heard people speak about
its use in clusters, offices, Web servers, and other common uses. One thing
that hasn't been talked about enough is its utility as a superior tool for
recovering data from other operating systems."
(Log in to post comments)
Linux can save your data (NewsForge) Posted Aug 9, 2004 22:09 UTC (Mon) by QuisUtDeus (guest, #14854) [Link] There have been many times that I've recovered blown Windows machines with a Linux boot or install disk.
I guess a more accurate description of the situation would be:
2) Windows recovery disks (the few I've seen) offer very little in terms of manual system inspection, and even a full Windows installation offers only a limited set of tools.
So here again: the Linux/Unix console administration toolset (even limited) is so much better than the Windows console admin toolset as to make the comparison absurd, even embarrassing. Later Windows versions (like NT/2000/XP) have added some sorely lacking tools, but they are not complete, and they often are not available on a stripped down install/recovery disk.
Maybe people are trying to be nice, but isn't MS someday going to give their sys-admins some more complete tools for system recovery? Such tools might be needed more often by Windows admins than by Linux admins due to the havoc caused by viruses etc.
Or, maybe MS should send out a Linux recovery CD (knoppix?) with each OS it sells. That would be a big improvement, I'd say.
Linux can save your data (NewsForge) Posted Aug 10, 2004 11:53 UTC (Tue) by fjf33 (subscriber, #5768) [Link] Most Wintel systems come with a recovery disk. If you ever call support, they will tell you to find the recovery CD, put it in the tray and reboot the computer. As if by magic the computer is back up and running (unless it was a hardware problem), and anyone wihtout any special training can fix the computer.
PS: I hope you made a backup of your files before doing this. :)
Linux can save your data (NewsForge) Posted Aug 10, 2004 14:43 UTC (Tue) by holstein (subscriber, #6122) [Link] I hope you made a backup of your files before doing this. :)Thats the point of the "recovery disk" : in some cases, you are then able to make that "damn-I'm-lucky" backup before resetting the computer to his factory settings (because that's what these disk are doing). Then, you can schedule yourself for a long evening reinstalling all the patchs and service packs you applied between the initial installation and your crash, then reinstalling your application, then reconfiguring everything...
Linux can save your data (NewsForge) Posted Aug 9, 2004 23:48 UTC (Mon) by kyuso (guest, #23894) [Link] One nice thing about linux is that it can read/write many non-linux filesystem partitions without a problem, and be able to have different bootable partitions. This makes it very robust in terms of backing up and restoring any kinds of data in any partition, locally or remotely, flawlessly.
I still cringe at the memory of wasted time back in the days when I had to sit in front of a PC waiting to push buttons every 30 minutes or so whenever I had to re-install everything when it started behaving inconsistently, knowing full well that I will have to go through the same long ritual when it crashes again.
It was a such a shock when I realized what linux can do, and how it can free me from the wasteful ritual.
If you have a newer operating system that doesn't crash that often, but still doesn't have a good recovery mechanism, it's like a time bomb with a very long fuse, ready to go off at the worst time without warning. It had happened once on my laptop, which forced me to again use linux to back up the now 10x bigger system. Now I can sleep sound, although I still shudder with cold sweat whenever I remember the days of the rituals.
Linux can save your data (NewsForge) Posted Aug 9, 2004 23:57 UTC (Mon) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] I have made use of a Knoppix CD for many data recovery jobs. It's a handy way of getting data from a badly virus-laden Windows machine (since the virus will not be able to propagate on Linux), and then nuking the hard drive decisively using dd(1). No boot sector virus, trojan, worm, or whatever will be able to survive being overwritten with null bytes.
With the addition of a Linux-based virus scanner that can detect Windows viruses, I can even delete the virus-infected programs and files without A) touching the rest of the disk, or B) risking the infection spreading. In the case of boot sector viruses, well, I'll still be overwriting the boot sector with dd(1), but that can be restored afterwards using fdisk. And I can do the same tricks on other platforms, too.
Yes yes, a very handy tool indeed.
Linux can save your data (NewsForge) Posted Aug 10, 2004 9:05 UTC (Tue) by lacostej (subscriber, #2760) [Link] My only problem with using Linux as recovery disk is when I have a PC laying with NTFS partition.
I find it unacceptable that the FileSystem that stores most of the user's data today is still locked into a proprietary format. I don't understand how governments accept that.
Appart from that Knoppix has been my friend for recovery jobs from day one. There's another specialized linux live distro that does the recovery job, but I don't recall the name.
Linux can save your data (NewsForge) Posted Aug 10, 2004 9:54 UTC (Tue) by thomask (guest, #17985) [Link] That really annoys me. Quite apart from the fact that RH refuse to add NTFS support to Fedora Core, the only way to safely write to a Windoze partition is to use FAT32 (which is actually an option if you install Windows yourself). My gripe with FAT32 is that it can't take big files - i.e. no DVD ripping or making home movies or any of that sort of thing. And since I'm still stuck using Windows for most things, that it a pain.
Linux can save your data (NewsForge) Posted Aug 10, 2004 12:02 UTC (Tue) by dmaxwell (guest, #14010) [Link] Captive wraps the Windows NTFS drivers so that Linux can arbitrarily read and write NTFS partitions quite safely. The drawback is that it is slow. The latest Knoppix includes Captive.
I've used it to recover data but the other way it helped me out was giving me a way to shove a NIC driver for a newer card onto a Windows 2000 partition. I've done that several times. Making a new Windows install is soooo much easier when you already have the driver install media unpacked and sitting in directories.
Linux can save your data (NewsForge) Posted Aug 10, 2004 21:59 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] Getting read-only NTFS support for Fedora is a simple matter; just install one RPM from this site. There isn't any reliable Linux driver that writes NTFS, though there is a kludge called Captive.
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