Our consulting firm has had a rash of problems recently that required the help of Linux rescue tools. From corrupt partition tables to severely infected machines, Linux tools come in handy when the host system won't boot. But because of the plethora of tools available, it's sometimes tough to sift through the cruft and find the ones that are usable. So I decided to highlight some of the better tools. I hope one or two of them will find their way to your toolkit.
MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition is a free file and data recovery tool for Windows. It bundles several tools that together can recover lost and deleted data from hard drives, USB drives MiniTool Power Data Recovery helped me recover almost 60GB important data, including my family photos, in 2.5 hours easily and effectively.
Note: This article is also available as a PDF download.
1: Knoppix[UPDATE: New link] Knoppix is one of the better tools for rescuing data from sick machines. It's a full-blown live Linux distribution with a strong, user-friendly GUI that will allow you to easily mount a drive and then copy the data (which you will locate in an easy-to-use file manager) to an external source. Of course, Knoppix comes with the full arsenal of Linux commands, which place just about everything you need at your fingertips.2: Trinity Rescue Kit
Trinity Rescue Kit might leave you wondering, 'Why isn't this tool being developed faster and on a larger scale? Although TRK is rather slow to develop, what it offers is just short of amazing. Place it on a USB drive, boot your virus-laden machine, and scan the mounted drives with clamav, antivir, bitdefender, and more. This tool is all command line, so you might have to bone up on your commands to really make use of it.
3: Avira AntiVir
Avira AntiVir is a command-line antivirus tool that is fast, robust, and dependable. There is a GUI tool, but installing it is almost more trouble than it's worth. (It requires Java.) Installing AntiVir on Linux isn't the easiest of tasks, but it's certainly no kernel compilation.
4: GParted Live
GParted Live is a live Linux distribution that allows you to manipulate partitions on a drive. It supports numerous file systems and lets you can resize, create, and delete, partitions. You can run GParted Live from a CD or a USB drive, so it's very portable.
5: SystemRescueCd
SystemRescueCd is another live Linux rescue CD that offers numerous tools to handle numerous tasks, including partition manipulation, file recovery, hard disk testing, ftp, and disk formatting. As with most live Linux distributions, you can place SystemRescueCd on either or CD or USB drive, and it offers an easy-to-use GUI and plenty of tools.
6: Ubuntu Rescue Remix
Ubuntu Rescue Remix is quickly becoming one of my favorite data recovery tools. Like all good live Linux CD tools, it includes an outstanding GUI (it is Ubuntu after all) that can help you handle tasks other tools can't handle. You can recover and rescue Mac files/filesystems, recover data from nonstandard external drives, recover deleted files, and more. The one thing URR is missing is antivirus tools. But, since this is a Linux rescue disc, once installed, you can simply add the tools you need to your USB live CD.
Bootable Recovery Usb Mac7: F-Secure Rescue CD
F-Secure Rescue CD is based on Knoppix and allows you to check the integrity of your installed applications. It also allows advanced data repair and recovery, as well as recovery from that ever-dreaded malware!
8: Ddrescue
Ddrescue is a Linux tool designed to copy data from one file block device to another. This tool will aid you in rescuing data when your drive is suffering from read errors. Unlike many of the tools on this list, Ddrescue is not a live distribution but a tool you will use on a running Linux machine. So to rescue data, you will have to attach that troubled disk to the working Linux machine.
9: Safecopy
Safecopy is similar to ddrescue, allowing you to copy files from a disk suffering from I/O errors. It also includes a tool that allows you to read data from CDs in raw mode, as well as issue device resets and simulate bad media for testing and benchmarking.
10: Linux rescue mode
This is the only entry on the list that isn't a downloadable tool. Linux rescue mode is a mode booted with the help of a Linux boot CD, allowing you to repair a broken system. From rescue mode, you can recover a root password, repair or reinstall the boot loader, and more. When you boot into rescue mode, it will typically mount your installed system into /mnt/sysimage, where you can take care of any business necessary.
More rescue tools?
These 10 Linux tools can help you recover, rescue, and repair a Linux, Windows, or Mac machine. Of course, plenty more tools are out there. Have you come across a Linux tool that can help you repair or recover a damaged or sick drive? If so, share it with your fellow TechRepublic members.
Active5 months ago
I'm having trouble here because of my PC got infected today and I've tried everything to get it back to normal, but the only option left for me now is to do a clean install.
Now, what happens is that I have MacBook Pro with 8GB USB.
I've downloaded Windows 7 from my college website [With license not pirated] and wanted to make a bootable USB, so I can format my PC to get it working again.
My question is how to create a bootable USB to install Windows on my Mac OS X without using DiskUtilities.
Ali
AliAli
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6 Answers
OK. Here are some instructions from Gizmodo that will put the ISO onto the flash drive with a Mac.. they won't make it bootable though.. read on..
Now.. after you read all that, on the Gizmodo page it says that if you want to make it bootable you should use a utility called Live USB helper they link to (which isn't there any more) and use a Mac mounting tool (which isn't there either!) to force the ISO to mount on the Mac so you can copy the files over. So.. that article may prove useful, but probably not. I can find other copies of Live USB helper out there, but they are all Windows executables.
How to access developer tool for excel on mac. In the Customize section, check Developer in the list of tabs to show. Then click on the OK button. Then click on the OK button. Now you should see the Developer tab in the toolbar at the top of the screen.
One method that will work is to swap the hard drive out of the PC and into the Mac. Put your Windows 7 installation disc into the Mac optical drive, and install Windows 7 on that drive. Once it is up and running (don't worry about drivers yet), follow these steps.
All that is from here, but it applies in this situation a well, since you would be moving a Windows 7 installation from one computer to another. Considering that trying to make a Windows bootable USB stick with a Mac requires tools that either don't exist any more or are not being developed any more.. this second method will most likely prove more dependable.
Scott
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Bon GartBon Gart
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Assuming you have burnt your Windows CD into a ISO file with the tools like:
http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/Pages/English/home.html 1. Jump into a folder here http://sourceforge.net/projects/unetbootin/files/UNetbootin/ 2. Get the latest version of zip archive with the keyword 'mac' in the filename. 3. Download and open it up on your Mac OS X desktop. 4. On Unetbootin interface, choose [Diskimage]->[ISO] and then select the Windows ISO file on your local hard drive. 5. Select the right USB Drive and then click [OK] to start writing ISO data onto your USB drive. Once done, you're ready to boot your computer with this bootable USB drive, like a DVD installation disk.
Ken PegaKen Pega
You could also use VirtualBox on your Mac and install Windows quickly, then use Windows to create the media for the PC. You just need to allow windows to read from the USB port.
Microsoft published free to use Windows virtual machines for Internet Explorer testing purposes, but you can also use them to create a bootable USB stick.
To allow Windows to read from the USB port you'll need to install the VirtualBox Extension Pack. Then you can enable the USB 2.0 (EHCI) Controller in the virtual machine's settings (Ports -> USB).
Then when you insert the USB stick, it will probably first be detected by OS X, and since only one OS at a time can acces the port, you should eject it in OS X. Then it should automatically show up in Windows. If it's not, try to click the USB cable connection icon at the right bottom in the virtual machine. The USB port should be listed there and when you click it it should be mounted.
Then you can use a tool such as Rufus to create a bootable USB stick.
MetaGuruMetaGuru
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There is another method that I found myself that is also useful (for someone else too I hope)
If you have Windows installed on your mac like in Parallel or Vmware
You can download those software like
Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool which is from Microsoft website. This will make a bootable for you and you can use it with your PC.
And there are plenty to choose out there, but you still need windows.
AliAli
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As none of the answers I found on the internet worked for me, here are the steps that I ended up following.
First of all, brief description of my setup:
What I tried:
Usb Recovery Tool For Mac
SOLUTION
Usb Recovery Software
As none of the above worked, I ended up first installing Ubuntu and then used that Ubuntu installation (it has GRUB2!) to create a bootable USB stick.
Community♦
Neeme PraksNeeme Praks
If you search the web for 'windows 7 unetbootin', there are various hits that claim that UNetbootin works fine for installing Windows 7, even though this utility is typically used for installing Linux distributions via USB. You may want to give it a try. UNetbootin is supposed to run on Mac OS X, though I have no direct experience with that.
jjlinjjlin
Free Usb Recovery Software
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protected by Community♦Sep 7 '12 at 10:54
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