Backup Files from Dead Windows to FTP
Author: Raymond20 Oct
Did you learn how to setup FTP server yesterday? If yes, then this is sort of like a continuation of yesterday’s tutorial. One of my client’s place has hundreds of computer and it’s pretty common for their computer to be infected by virus and resulting in an “unrescuable” system which requires to reformat and reinstall Windows.
Their worst nightmare is hearing me telling them that the Windows on his/her computer is totally corrupted, can’t be fixed and the hard drive must reformat to reinstall Windows. They are only afraid of loosing their important documents and files on their computer. I’ve always advised them to backup their daily work to server because you may never know when your computer can’t be booted up but they’re lazy to do that.
Actually I could just tell them that I don’t know how to rescue the data from the unbootable system and just reinstall Windows. Being the nice guy that I am, I’ve decided to “try” rescuing their data before reformatting and reinstalling Windows.
The manual way of backing up data from a dead system is to take out the hard drive and connect it to a working system as secondary drive but I try to avoid doing that first. I always do the software way first. If that fails, I’ll do the hardware way.
The best software way I can think of is to boot up the dead machine with Windows PE (pre-install) environment CD. The best Windows PE CD I know is Ultimate Boot CD for Windows from UBCD4Win. UBCD4Win is a bootable CD which contains software that allows you to repair, restore, or diagnose almost any computer problem. UBCD4Win is based on Bart’s PE and all software included are freeware utilities for Windows. In short, Windows PE is Windows in a disc. You can run Windows directly from CD without having a hard drive. I always carry UBCD4Win in my CD case with me.
With UBCD4Win, I can use any of the methods below to backup files from an unbootable Windows. First, I boot up the system with UBCDWin. When I get in to Windows PE, I can either:
- Plug in a USB flash drive and backup
- Plug in USB external hard drive and backup
- If computer has CD burning capabilities, burn data to CD
- If network is supported, backup data to server/computer.
- Backup to FTP using built-in FileZilla Client
My customer told me he doesn’t have an external hard drive and only has a 256MB USB flash drive. Computer does support CD burning, but the data that he wants to backup is more than 15GB. That leaves us with 2 remaining methods which is IF UBCD4Win is able to load the network drivers, then I can copy his data to a server’s shared drive or to a local FTP server. I tried accessing a file server but I got the error message “SERVER is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions. Access is denied.“.
I tried accessing a workstation nearby but still got the same error message. I don’t know why I couldn’t access any computers on the network… The final option is to try connecting to a local FTP server. I ran FileZilla client, typed in the FTP server IP address, username, password and port, hit the Quickconnect button…. AND IT CONNECTED! My customer was so happy and he quickly copied all his important data to the FTP server.
At first I only know the first 4 methods and I got to know about the FTP method when I discovered that UBCD4Win has FileZilla client. Then I remembered many months ago I helped them setup a FTP server in their network. So I figured I can use FileZilla client to connect to the FTP server and transfer files there.
If you’re interested to have the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows, follow the steps below on how to create the disc.
1. Download and install UBCD4Win
NOTE: Step 2 and 3 is optional. Always check in UBCD4Win forums to see if the Net Drivers update is required or not.
2. Download the latest UBCD4Win Net Drivers v2.02 for supporting more than 500 types of NIC. This step is optional.
3. Delete the C:\UBCD4Win\drivers\Net folder and extract the latest UBCD4Win Net Drivers v2.02 (UBCD4WinNetDriversV202.exe) to C:\UBCD4Win\drivers folder.
4. Launch UBCD4Win from Desktop or Start Menu.
5. Insert original Windows XP CD to CD/DVD ROM and select the source. To confirm that the source is correct, click on Source from the menu bar and select Check.
6. If your computer can burn CDs, select Burn to CD/DVD and click Build button. If can’t, select Create ISO image and once it has complete creating the ISO image, copy it to a computer that can burn CDs and burn it.
To boot up computer with UBCD4Win, you need to go BIOS and set the boot sequence. Once the computer is being booted up with UBCD4Win, you’ll see a blue colored screen. Select Launch “The Ultimate Boot CD for Windows” and it will start loading…
When asked “Network support is not start yet. Do you want to start network support now?” Click Yes.
You can run FileZilla client by going to Start -> Programs -> Networking Tools -> FileZilla.
Enter Address as IP address of the FTP server, username, password and port and click Quickconnect.
If all methods above doesn’t work, the final option is to take out the hard drive and plug it in to another working computer as secondary disk. Boot up Windows and a new drive will appear. Depending on how the security is being configured on the dead Windows, you might be able to access the user’s application data such as Desktop, My Documents…
[tags]ubcd4win, windows, PE, backup, ftp[/tags]
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This is a great find! Thanks a lot for posting this one. I’ve never really run into a problem where I might require something like this, but never-the-less, it would always be something good to have.
My only problem is that I don’t have an actual “cd” for XP. My xp came loaded onto a partition on my harddrive, and as such, I doubt this will actually work. I shall mess around with it though, and see if I can manage it.
I normally keep a copy of Super Grub Disc in my CD case at all times to fix those unhappy computers that fail to boot up.
Couldnt you just use a linux distrebutuion to get around the read-write permissons, afaik linus ignores ntfs permissions.
I agree w/ Mark, the linux distro is much easier to implement – you just download, burn and boot. You have to create the PE image that is a pain.
Just burn a Ubuntu Live CD. Connect to your remote computer via SAMBA or FTP. Copy files from HD to remote ftp/Samba server.
Alot easier and faster than BartPE/WinPE and more compatible as well unless you want to add drivers to Winpe/BartPE all day.
Thanks for the suggestion guys. I’ll try out with a linux live CD and see how easy it is. It makes sense that linux can get around the read-write permissions as linux ignores ntfs permission.
You can also use a USB to IDE/Sata cable. This is much easier than removing the hard drive and installing it on another computer. In many cases you can connect the cable to the drive while it is still inside the computer. Of course you need another working computer or laptop for the USB side.
That’d work too. I wonder, is it faster to transfer using USB to IDE/Sata cable or network?
Raymond,
The raw speed of direct disk connection might be in the 55MB/s and up to 70MBs on fast SATA and FSB speed. So this is the fastest, all else is limiting the speed being bottlenecks with the interfaces.
Wired Ethernet of 100mbs is about 12MBs.
Gigabit might give not 10X speed, but more like 4X.
USB1 is 12mbs, about 1MBS
USB2 is 480mbs, about 60MBs, but in real life you get only about 25-27MBs due to USB overhead.
Firewire400 (the most common, 800 is rare) is 400mbs, but due to low overhead, can sometimes transfer better than USB2, with by far lower CPU utilization.
The speed of the USB and FW is highly dependent on the quality of the controller chip.
PS: you can test all direct connections with program like HD Tune. Notice also the burst rate, which is the maximum speed of the interface, not of the sustained data transfer rate.
Most FTP clients will give transfer rate.