Jay, this video is exactly what I needed to help me resolve a dilemma, so thank you for it. I came to Linux a couple of years ago when my Windows 10 laptop refused to present me with a login screen, despite my repeated and various attempts to get it to do so. Therefore I bought a 1 GB SSD, removed the one that was in the laptop (Windows 10), replaced it with the new one and installed Linux Mint. I've been learning Linux from you and others since that time, but this is my first comment. I preserved the hard disk from the laptop of course, and I have a dongle to permit me to connect it up with it's former home (the very laptop I'm using now), so I plan to follow your instructions for collecting the things of value that are still on that Windows 10 drive. In fact, I have a number of other old computers that have things on them that I could also harvest using this approach. Thank you again for the clear instructions.
easier than what I use to do 20 years ago as back then we had to modify the fstab and create a mount for the targeted drive. glad to see that linux became more efficient. great content
"Recovery" is not really appropriate in this tutorial. This is more of a "migration". You should make a "Recovery" with Linux video showing how to repair an unreadable file system/RAID volume/etc.
I thought it might be useful to mention that another potential issue with the USB drive showing up in the boot menu can happen when the USB drive is partitioned with an MBR (DOS) partition table rather than a GPT partition table. If legacy boot mode (sometimes called CSM) is not enabled, then a USB drive partitioned with MBR will not show up.
Took maybe half of the video trying to create a boot drive than actually recovering files because is so easy and fast. I did this so many times and always is helpful to have a linux usb stick around.
Great video Jay. This has been my go to method for recovering files from old windows laptops. One point though, it's important to note is that this method wouldn't work with Windows drives with bitlocker enabled.
i like ventoy most as a usb boot drive creator, after installing it creates 2 partitions, the hidden boot partition and the partition that shows up normally on both windows and linux.(fat32) you'll only need to copy any images you want to boot from to the partition and it'll be added as a option in the menu automatically on booting the usb stick, making it really easy and versatile to both delete old images and add more images to boot from. for just trying out an OS i'd recommend virtualbox more though, you can just delete it when done with it without having to reformat things. i think hiren's boot cd is also a better option for recovery since it has so many recovery and diagnosis tools by default, but it's not as accessible for beginners and not fully open source afaik
This is not a recovery its a migration of data in case of boot failure.. Recovery would be saving data from disks with broken sectors or corrupt raid etc... For the case showed in this video there are special distros for it. Much smaller than xubuntu with pre-installed tools for actual data recovery etc.. But still the video is helpful for some people with little knowledge but I would rename it..
Ventoy is also a good utility for making bootable USBs. You can actually keep multiple different OS images on a Ventoy-formatted USB stick, and you don’t have to reflash the USB if you want to put a new OS on it or take one off. Just copy the image onto the flash drive (or delete the one you don’t want). Upon boot, it brings you to a menu that lets you select which OS you want to boot to. Very useful for distro-hopping
Awesome video JAY! I use MX Linux as a Linux USB recovery, as well as my friend Eznix's EzArcher projects Arch ISO to recovery data with a USB. If the drive is has the "Click of Death" the sooner you get to you stuff you want the better... :-) If it's just a borked Windows or Linux install this will be the best route to be sure if all you want is your personal data and not the system. :-) I know everyone with a keyboard will have there way of doing this and that is ok. Just remember with a Linux bootable USB there are still 10 ways to do the same thing folks! Lol As I'm a guy with a ZZ Top Beard, I approve! :-P Thanks for the video Jay! LLAP
Thank you Jay for all your years of dedication to learning the greatest operating system since the '90s. You've helped me learn so many new things, I cannot count them. And you are an excellent reference. Just a kind word of deep appreciation from me. Thank you!
I am assuming that you plugged the 2nd USB drive into a 2nd USB port and didn't remove the 1st USB drive that was running live Linux? Would a USB hub work for a situation where the computer only has one USB port? Thanks for your no nonsense, direct to the point videos.
4:18 My 2008 HP dc5850 is 64-bits (Phenom X3 8600; DDR2; PCIe 2.0 and 4x SATA-2), however my 2003 HP d530 is 32-bits (Pentium 4 HT; DDR; AGP & PCI; 2x IDE & 2x SATA-1). Both were off-lease PCs, I used the HP d530 from 2009 to 2014 and the HP dc5850 from 2014 to May 2019.
This also works to access files on an unencrypted window partition that you have lost the user account password for. I was planning on having to crack the password but found using a live USB Linux distro will have unrestricted access to the files on the windows hard drive bypassing all the windows user account permissions.
That's great video. I had another situation in which I needed to use Linux live CD, but to file undelete files from a EXT4 partition. I have tried popOS, Zorin OS live cd, but there was always an issue with the available software. When the files where extracted from the ext4 partition they could only be written on the live cd USB media. Even on the live CD the directory was unable to be open due to some error in the Gnome 21.10. Can you make file recovery (undelete, repair) for the Linux partitions?
Offtopic comment for your upcoming "Linux Switchers Live Stream": I'd like to suggest a topic that makes me stick to Windows on desktop although I have intermediate (server) Linux skills: Multi monitor setups with different resolutions and fractional scaling. My current setup is: 3 monitors: one 4k, two 1920x1080. The 4k one is currently scaled to 175% on Windows 11. I really tried a lot (distributions, desktop environments and window managers) but in the end it's always experimental or ugly. The size might be right, but program windows look unproportional, fonts are super small etc. I had the best out of box experience with Fedora 35, but it still wasn't good. While I enjoy figuring out Linux issues for servers, from a Desktop OS all I want is a stable system without Redmond spyware that looks nice. I only achieved halfway nice, but with *a lot* of config file changes and modifications. Maybe you have some advice regarding multi monitor and 4k resolution setups for Linux switchers.
What are the chances you can still recover the data but not boot into windows (or whatever you're using normally)? Isn't the only real use for this to bypass login screens to recover data if you lost a password?
I have windows 11 and when I opened the computer to run via xubuntu I got a message saying Unable to find a medium containing a live file system. Attempt interactive netboot from URL? Y OR N.
Hello Jay, great video. What about using Linux Mint xfce as live usb system. This is also lightweight and I know that you wrote books about Mint. Does xubuntu have any specific advatage?
I accidentally mounted linux to my hard-drive instead of my bookable USB. How can I recover win10 or any of my files? I keep booting into Linux with no way of booting into my normal win 10 OS!
My situation: I'm an idiot who didn't back up their first SSD with Windows and wanted to Install Linux on the second SSD. Turns out, I accidentally formatted and deleted my first SSD with windows on it and now I have Ubuntu installed on it. So now I'm trying to recover all my stuff from within the same first SSD while doing all of it from Ubuntu. I will update and edit this text to let y'all know if this worked for me. Nope, I had already deleted my stuff. Maybe a software like DiskDrill. Oh well. We'll see.
Would it work when using a Linux Mint live USB? I'm trying to use the cinnamon. My USB is limited to 7 GB. I wanted to try the same process but a different Linux OS.
Hi. thanks for the awesome instructions. I am halfway through and was wondering if the Linux OS will recognize External HDDs (that need to be rescued or to be used to save recovered files) which are plugged in through USB and USB-C. Dell XPS 15 machine
Hi. Good video. I would like to see how to make a bootable floppy to access the thumb to save files that way. I have a computer that the bios will not autoboot to CD-Rom without a boot floppy.
I have recently install arch linux and facing issues with multi monitor when I connect hdmi the display manager pops up but no were second monitor shows plz make the video to solve it
Wish this would work to recover my files from my BSD NAS. I had a lot of files when that NAS died. It was setup with a single partition over several drives using a process the name of which escapes me atm. I have been trying to get the files off them for years.
Nice video! If the pc to be rescued is old it probably has a 32 bit cpu, For that reason you must use a 32 bit version of linux as your rescue usb drive. It will work on all pcs old and new. Now there are not many 32 bit current linux distributions but there are some. Sparky linux is one of them. I am sure that some others also exist.
Is it possible to access files used on an old PC with Windows 7 from the 1990s without the computer or operating system using Linux Mint Cinnamon and perhaps some sort of hard drive reader I could buy? I also have data on a bunch of 3.5 inch floppy disks and external hard drives as well as the internal drives I'd like to try to access. Thanks in advance!
I keep a recent live CD, er, DVD now around for this and other uses... I've borked some things using test disk, not a fan of it even though it's saved me a few times.
Hi, could you make some video about seafile vs nextcloud? Or maybe something similar which is secure, good, stable and can be self-hosted for small business? Thanks in advance...
hello first off i tried this and was able to grab some of my files that were much needed i sure wish i knew of this like 6 months ago thank you so much for posting this . i only have herd about linex but knew nothing about it . id like to chat with you i have some questions about linex if you have time perhaps in messenger on facebook or if i can call you on the phone please let me know thank you very much Bill
Jay, this video is exactly what I needed to help me resolve a dilemma, so thank you for it.
I came to Linux a couple of years ago when my Windows 10 laptop refused to present me with a login screen, despite my repeated and various attempts to get it to do so. Therefore I bought a 1 GB SSD, removed the one that was in the laptop (Windows 10), replaced it with the new one and installed Linux Mint. I've been learning Linux from you and others since that time, but this is my first comment.
I preserved the hard disk from the laptop of course, and I have a dongle to permit me to connect it up with it's former home (the very laptop I'm using now), so I plan to follow your instructions for collecting the things of value that are still on that Windows 10 drive. In fact, I have a number of other old computers that have things on them that I could also harvest using this approach.
Thank you again for the clear instructions.
easier than what I use to do 20 years ago as back then we had to modify the fstab and create a mount for the targeted drive. glad to see that linux became more efficient. great content
they teach that in school still
"Recovery" is not really appropriate in this tutorial. This is more of a "migration". You should make a "Recovery" with Linux video showing how to repair an unreadable file system/RAID volume/etc.
I thought it might be useful to mention that another potential issue with the USB drive showing up in the boot menu can happen when the USB drive is partitioned with an MBR (DOS) partition table rather than a GPT partition table. If legacy boot mode (sometimes called CSM) is not enabled, then a USB drive partitioned with MBR will not show up.
Took maybe half of the video trying to create a boot drive than actually recovering files because is so easy and fast.
I did this so many times and always is helpful to have a linux usb stick around.
Great video Jay. This has been my go to method for recovering files from old windows laptops. One point though, it's important to note is that this method wouldn't work with Windows drives with bitlocker enabled.
Thanks for this information, and what is the workaround for such a scenario?
i like ventoy most as a usb boot drive creator, after installing it creates 2 partitions, the hidden boot partition and the partition that shows up normally on both windows and linux.(fat32)
you'll only need to copy any images you want to boot from to the partition and it'll be added as a option in the menu automatically on booting the usb stick, making it really easy and versatile to both delete old images and add more images to boot from.
for just trying out an OS i'd recommend virtualbox more though, you can just delete it when done with it without having to reformat things.
i think hiren's boot cd is also a better option for recovery since it has so many recovery and diagnosis tools by default, but it's not as accessible for beginners and not fully open source afaik
This is not a recovery its a migration of data in case of boot failure.. Recovery would be saving data from disks with broken sectors or corrupt raid etc... For the case showed in this video there are special distros for it. Much smaller than xubuntu with pre-installed tools for actual data recovery etc.. But still the video is helpful for some people with little knowledge but I would rename it..
Ventoy is also a good utility for making bootable USBs. You can actually keep multiple different OS images on a Ventoy-formatted USB stick, and you don’t have to reflash the USB if you want to put a new OS on it or take one off. Just copy the image onto the flash drive (or delete the one you don’t want). Upon boot, it brings you to a menu that lets you select which OS you want to boot to. Very useful for distro-hopping
Linux doesn’t support windows shortcuts. Learned something new today. Thank you Jay.
I still have my puppyLinux flash drive from 2005 somewhere
Awesome video JAY!
I use MX Linux as a Linux USB recovery, as well as my friend Eznix's EzArcher projects Arch ISO to recovery data with a USB.
If the drive is has the "Click of Death" the sooner you get to you stuff you want the better... :-)
If it's just a borked Windows or Linux install this will be the best route to be sure if all you want is your personal data
and not the system. :-)
I know everyone with a keyboard will have there way of doing this and that is ok. Just remember with a Linux bootable USB there are still 10 ways to do the same thing folks! Lol
As I'm a guy with a ZZ Top Beard, I approve! :-P
Thanks for the video Jay!
LLAP
Thank you Jay for all your years of dedication to learning the greatest operating system since the '90s. You've helped me learn so many new things, I cannot count them. And you are an excellent reference. Just a kind word of deep appreciation from me. Thank you!
U are awesome... Everytime I learn something new from u..
Thank you Teacher
I am assuming that you plugged the 2nd USB drive into a 2nd USB port and didn't remove the 1st USB drive that was running live Linux? Would a USB hub work for a situation where the computer only has one USB port? Thanks for your no nonsense, direct to the point videos.
4:18 My 2008 HP dc5850 is 64-bits (Phenom X3 8600; DDR2; PCIe 2.0 and 4x SATA-2), however my 2003 HP d530 is 32-bits (Pentium 4 HT; DDR; AGP & PCI; 2x IDE & 2x SATA-1).
Both were off-lease PCs, I used the HP d530 from 2009 to 2014 and the HP dc5850 from 2014 to May 2019.
This also works to access files on an unencrypted window partition that you have lost the user account password for. I was planning on having to crack the password but found using a live USB Linux distro will have unrestricted access to the files on the windows hard drive bypassing all the windows user account permissions.
Does this work for files in a pin protected computer (got the sign in option failure on my windows device)
The title is misleading. 'File Recovery' is usually in the context of deleted files. This is just a copy.
That's great video. I had another situation in which I needed to use Linux live CD, but to file undelete files from a EXT4 partition. I have tried popOS, Zorin OS live cd, but there was always an issue with the available software. When the files where extracted from the ext4 partition they could only be written on the live cd USB media. Even on the live CD the directory was unable to be open due to some error in the Gnome 21.10. Can you make file recovery (undelete, repair) for the Linux partitions?
That's actually a great idea! I've added it to my list of topics to research. Thanks!
Honestly I thought video was about undeleting files. I was disappointed
Thank you very much. This video helped me a lot.
So if the drive doesn't show, it's completely cooked right?
Thanks great information, this helps a lot. Take care.
Why not use ventoy?
Offtopic comment for your upcoming "Linux Switchers Live Stream": I'd like to suggest a topic that makes me stick to Windows on desktop although I have intermediate (server) Linux skills: Multi monitor setups with different resolutions and fractional scaling.
My current setup is: 3 monitors: one 4k, two 1920x1080. The 4k one is currently scaled to 175% on Windows 11. I really tried a lot (distributions, desktop environments and window managers) but in the end it's always experimental or ugly. The size might be right, but program windows look unproportional, fonts are super small etc. I had the best out of box experience with Fedora 35, but it still wasn't good.
While I enjoy figuring out Linux issues for servers, from a Desktop OS all I want is a stable system without Redmond spyware that looks nice. I only achieved halfway nice, but with *a lot* of config file changes and modifications. Maybe you have some advice regarding multi monitor and 4k resolution setups for Linux switchers.
What are the chances you can still recover the data but not boot into windows (or whatever you're using normally)? Isn't the only real use for this to bypass login screens to recover data if you lost a password?
I have windows 11 and when I opened the computer to run via xubuntu I got a message saying Unable to find a medium containing a live file system. Attempt interactive netboot from URL? Y OR N.
Did the job, thanks bro!
Hello Jay, great video. What about using Linux Mint xfce as live usb system. This is also lightweight and I know that you wrote books about Mint. Does xubuntu have any specific advatage?
I accidentally mounted linux to my hard-drive instead of my bookable USB. How can I recover win10 or any of my files? I keep booting into Linux with no way of booting into my normal win 10 OS!
My situation: I'm an idiot who didn't back up their first SSD with Windows and wanted to Install Linux on the second SSD. Turns out, I accidentally formatted and deleted my first SSD with windows on it and now I have Ubuntu installed on it. So now I'm trying to recover all my stuff from within the same first SSD while doing all of it from Ubuntu. I will update and edit this text to let y'all know if this worked for me.
Nope, I had already deleted my stuff. Maybe a software like DiskDrill. Oh well. We'll see.
Would it work when using a Linux Mint live USB? I'm trying to use the cinnamon. My USB is limited to 7 GB. I wanted to try the same process but a different Linux OS.
Can you do a video covering, recovering deleted files?
I've used this technique many times, most recently aboard a ship.
Hi. thanks for the awesome instructions. I am halfway through and was wondering if the Linux OS will recognize External HDDs (that need to be rescued or to be used to save recovered files) which are plugged in through USB and USB-C. Dell XPS 15 machine
What about file recovery? Did you just copy existing files and shoot a 20 minute video for that?
If the disk had been encrypted, will Xubuntu prompt for the recovery key?
10:20 after hitting enter I just get a black screen. any ideas?
Hi. Good video. I would like to see how to make a bootable floppy to access the thumb to save files that way. I have a computer that the bios will not autoboot to CD-Rom without a boot floppy.
I have recently install arch linux and facing issues with multi monitor when I connect hdmi the display manager pops up but no were second monitor shows plz make the video to solve it
Do you have a video on how to securely wipe hard drives?
Like new look
Wish this would work to recover my files from my BSD NAS. I had a lot of files when that NAS died. It was setup with a single partition over several drives using a process the name of which escapes me atm. I have been trying to get the files off them for years.
I cannot access the sda1 drive using Fedora. Can anyone help me?
Nice video! If the pc to be rescued is old it probably has a 32 bit cpu, For that reason you must use a 32 bit version of linux as your rescue usb drive. It will work on all pcs old and new. Now there are not many 32 bit current linux distributions but there are some. Sparky linux is one of them. I am sure that some others also exist.
OK I posted before finishing the video. Sorry!
Most computers from the last 20 years are 64 bit capable. As far back as the Athlon64 and Pentium D lines
This gonna be good. Thanks for the video.-
My pleasure. (Literally, that was a fun video to produce).
What dose the linux firmware updater option in your laptop boot menu do and how do you use it
When I replaced my old laptop a few years ago, I wiped the old machine's drive by freshly installing Linux Mint.
Awesome 👍🏻
Can i do this to recover files hidden by virus in Windows?
Is it possible to access files used on an old PC with Windows 7 from the 1990s without the computer or operating system using Linux Mint Cinnamon and perhaps some sort of hard drive reader I could buy? I also have data on a bunch of 3.5 inch floppy disks and external hard drives as well as the internal drives I'd like to try to access. Thanks in advance!
how to recover data from bitlocker enabled disk?
Heyy my windows partition is locked how can I acces my partition
Lubuntu is also pretty light.
I keep a recent live CD, er, DVD now around for this and other uses... I've borked some things using test disk, not a fan of it even though it's saved me a few times.
Can you do this for mac os?
Wondering the same thing
Jay, you should check out Ventoy. It's a great program and I think you'll love it.
Everything worked fine until I booted into xubuntu and couldn't find my drive that I wanted to back up the files from
Man I hope this can help me recover at least some of my files from a hard drive with bad sectors. I'll update once I get to it.
1 yrs later .... Did you ever get to it 👀
Hi, could you make some video about seafile vs nextcloud? Or maybe something similar which is secure, good, stable and can be self-hosted for small business? Thanks in advance...
Thanks Jay.
how can I do the same with a MacOs system?
Superb i would try xubuntu for data recovery
ma' man
UEFI is making this trick less and less useful on new machines.
Do you know how work around?
That's what called content... ❣️❣️
Hi sir.. can u show we about kill the zombie files on linux os? 🙂
Linux Essentials - htop
ruclips.net/video/tU9cO9FwDx0/видео.html
hello first off i tried this and was able to grab some of my files that were much needed i sure wish i knew of this like 6 months ago thank you so much for posting this . i only have herd about linex but knew nothing about it . id like to chat with you i have some questions about linex if you have time perhaps in messenger on facebook or if i can call you on the phone please let me know thank you very much Bill