Burnt out hard drive i think need help...Forensics???

Question

Ok I have a windows 2000 box that i believe the hard drive crapped out on me. I keep getting these Blue screens of death right after the windows loading screen. Anyways there is only one thing on this box i need and that is the book i started writing. I have a Live CD of Helix computer forensics to hopefully try and figure out how to get this .doc file off. But i just cant figure it out. Can anyone recommend a way i can get this book off my computer when it wont even load into windows not even in safe mode? There has to be a way!! Please some computer genius help me! How do i get my book back....

Yea I had tried that earlier on but still no luck. It still wouldnt boot up. I have also tried using a program called helix which didnt work. Then i tried the live knoppix cd but still none of my files were able to be seen there either. I dont know what to do. And i dont have the money to get the pros to do it. I think i am just out of luck.

Answer 1

Your best bet is accessing the hard drive without booting up the OS that is on it. Basic computer forensics recommends this anyway so that you can look around without spreading any "infection" which might have caused it or letting it start again to do more damage.

The keyword you want to search to ask about is "boot disc" or "boot disk". A bare bones operating system that you can boot off of which will give you the basic tools to look around, copy, delete, and maybe do some fixing without having to run any of the programs on the heard drive.

When you bootup there is usually an option that flashes on the screen (hit F2 or hit Del or something like that) to stop the bootup and tell it "boot from disc".

You can also install a seperate hard drive and bootup from a full version of something like windows but thats usually more trouble than its worth.