Which live CD for recovery

[David Robillard]

On 12/6/06, Erik Norgaard <norgaard at locolomo.org> wrote:
> > Do you have a USB drive? Can you mount it on the crippled Windows Box?
> > If so, then I would suggest that you backup the user's data, format
> > the crippled box's disk drive and do a clean Windows install. After
> > all, there probably was a virus on this box. Are you sure you want to
> > take chances?
>
> Well, the system won't boot, not even in safemode, so there is no such
> alternative. I hope this is just some systemfile in the vault of AVG
> anti virus.
>
> Take the chance... well it can't get much worse. If at least the system
> gets back working then I can try other ways to clean it.

If you can get the machine to mount the USB drive or have it's network
connection online, you can simply backup the contents of
"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users"
"C:\Documents and Settings\${username}" (replace ${username} with the
various usernames configured on the crippled box).

Once you backup the content of those two directories, you should have
all of your user's data. Therefore you should be ok to wipe the disk
and perform a clean Windows install.

I suggest, however, that you upload those backup onto another Windows
machine and have your user double-check to see if you have everything.
Better be safe than sorry.

Cheers,

David
-- 
David Robillard
UNIX systems administrator & Oracle DBA
CISSP, RHCE & Sun Certified Security Administrator
Montreal: +1 514 966 0122