User:Skierpage/Recovery

Disaster!

I followed instructions to create a bootable SD card,

 zcat blah.bootable.gz > /dev/sdX

This is dangerous because it overwrites the partition, but I had done it before, I knew there was nothing on my SD card and /dev/sda is my SD card.

But /dev/sda is my hard drive. The whole thing.

I checked with df and the size looked wrong, then I read my notes (should have done that first) and I was overwriting the wrong disk. Ctrl-C!

Then I tested the .gz file and it was corrupt, so I thought nothing had been written. My computer worked fine.

The next day I got an error coming out of standby about not reading C:\$MFT or something. So I decided to reboot. Big mistake, I should have read partition tables, backed up some key files, and prepared for disaster.

Rule 1: do what you can while it's working.

Errors shutting down, then could not reboot, bad disk.

Failed recovery

I couldn't find my Windows XP CD-ROM, even though Falcon Northwest make a big deal. Of course my Windows XP is so dramatically different thanks to all the updates and service packs that the original disk has been useless for System File Checking and file recovery and such. I had always meant to follow instructions to slipstream a new boot CD-ROM, where you make a fresh Windows CD-ROM that contains the latest files, but never did.

Rule 2 You need a boot disk around.

Falcon Northwest provided me a personalized Recovery Disk, I inserted this and nothing happened. Zero feedback.

Into Kubuntu Live CD

I had built a Kubuntu Live CD.