| Repairing Windows PCs the Linux way |
Feb. 03, 2006
Do you want to know the basics of repairing Windows systems with Knoppix Linux?
You should. It's incredibly useful information to have, since with Knoppix, or other live CD-based Linuxes, you can do life-saving surgery on near-dead Windows systems.
I've done it several times myself and I've meant to get around to writing an introductory how-to on the subject. So much for that idea! Scott Granneman has beaten me to it with his excellent story, Fixing Windows with Knoppix, in our sister publication, Extreme Tech.
In this tale, Granneman goes over some of the repairs you're most likely to want to do on a Windows system with the Debian-based Knoppix Linux. These include: working on the Windows machine's hard drive partitions; repairing broken boot.ini files; editing the system registry file; and recovering data from dead systems to USB drives, writeable CD or DVD, network drives, or even an email account.
Maybe it's just as well that I never did write that article. I suspect I'd be embarrassed now, because Granneman's story is just so darn good. In fact, if you'd like to know more about hacking away at Windows systems and Knoppix itself, Granneman has an entire book out now, Hacking Knoppix, on the subject.
I haven't read the book yet myself. But, based on the sample in Extreme Tech, I'll be getting a copy shortly on my own dime.
Knoppix, of course, isn't the only distribution that can be used to repair Windows. There are other distributions devoted to nothing but fixing Windows.
An old favorite of mine, SystemRescueCD has just come back from the near-death of 18 months without an update. The new version, 0.2.16, uses the 2.6.15 kernel and is based on Gentoo Linux.
Using Linux repair distributions for Windows fix-ups is not a job for novices. But, if you know your Linux disk repair, editing, and network tools, and the basics of how Windows works, these Linuxes are invaluable.
I'd go so far as to say that if you know a Windows technician or PC repair person that doesn't use Linux, you should get him or her one of them and encourage them to give them a try. They'll thank you for it, once they get the hang of it.
Then, you can move on to getting them to make a real Windows fix-up... replacing Microsoft's ...cough... best with Linux.
--Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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