How to: Recover Important Data after your System is Crashed

 Suppose your computer commits suicide by inviting the latest virus and you are not able to get it back up and running. As a last resort you decide to backup your important documents, photos that you took of your girl friend and the ASCII text file containing your passwords. Today I will show how to do this very easily.

Create a System Rescue CD
Use an uninfected computer and download the System Rescue CD ISO file (latest version) from sysresccd.org. Now burn this ISO to a blank CD.

Start the rescue
After the ISO is written to CD, take it out, pop the CD into the drive of the computer that’s busted. Set the BIOS to boot through the CD first, hard disk next. And allow it to reboot.

You should see this beautiful System Rescue startup screen. Type these options after the boot: prompt and press ENTER.


rescuecd docache dostartx dodhcp

The docache option allows you to remove the System Rescue CD after it boots up, so you can enter another blank CD/DVD and take backups.

The dostartx option starts GUI automatically.

The dodhcp opiton automatically configures the network and connects you automatically to the Internet after booting.

Load the appropriate keymap when prompted (or just select the default US keymap).

It should start GUI automatically. In case it doesn’t, type startx at the command line and press ENTER.

Your desktop should have a terminal with a yellow background. We need to mount the partition and then do the backup.

Your Windows partition will most likely be located in /mnt/sda1 or /mnt/sda2. To check the partitions, run this:

fdisk -l /dev/sda

It should show you the partition names.

Then, to mount partition 1, run this:

ntfs-3g /mnt/sda1 /mnt/windows

If it mounts correctly, you should be able to see the files in your C:\ directory when you type:

ls -al /mnt/windows



Backing up your data to a CD/DVD
Now, to begin backing up your data, type this:

xfburn

The Xfburn program will show you a list of your partitions. Browse to the Windows partition(s) using the Filesystem menu option on the top-left and select all the files you need. Click on New Data Composition. Insert a blank CD or DVD and allow to burn all your data to the CD/DVD.

Backing up your data to a remote location
This is easier if you love using the command line. First, make sure the network is up by pinging to google.com

ping google.com

If it throws up an error, you have to run this to configure your network interface:

net-setup eth0

If you want to transfer the files in the directory C:\work to your remote server myremoteserver.com as user hungryhackers

The directory C:\work would be located in /mnt/windows/work. This command will transfer the directory:


scp -r /mnt/windows/work tricksandtech@myremoteserver.com

Enter the password for user hungryhackers and the file transfer will begin.

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How to:Modify your Windows XP And Other Windows Boot logo

DISCLAIMER: We here at The Tech Guide are NOT responsible for anything that happens to your computer as a result of this procedure. DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

This procedure is very similar to modifying the Windows 2000 boot logo (full tutorial on that located at Little White Dog). Microsoft decided to remove the pallet from the logo to another location. So now when you open up ntoskrnl.exe in Resource Hacker, the .bmps are just black images. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, don't worry.

The first tool you will need is Resource Hacker. First locate your ntoskrnl.exe, which can be found in \windows\system32. Make a copy of your ntoskrnl.exe and rename ntoskrnl.bak. Now fire up Resource Hacker and open the ntoskrnl.exe.

In the left hand column you will see a list of resources to edit. Open the first tree called Bitmaps and you will see numbers 1-10. Numbers 1, 8, and 10 are the WinXP Pro bitmaps. 1, 7, and 9 are for Home Edition. In this tutorial we will be using Pro. Select number 1.

Then go to the action menu and click 'save Bitmap'.

Save the bitmaps wherever you would like to, just remember where they are for later use. Repeat the process for numbers 8 and 10. Now for editing these images, we will be using Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7. Open all three of these images into Paintshop. When they open, they will be completely black. In order to see the real images, we have to import the pallet. Here is the palette for Paint Shop Pro: 16.pal. And one for Photoshop: 16.act (you may need to right-click the links and select save-as to have your browser save the files instead of trying to display them). In Paintshop, hit Shift + O and select the 16.pal file.

Make sure to select 'Maintain Indexes'. If you open all three images at once, you will need to apply the palette for each of the images. The images should now be visible.

Number 1 should look like this:

8 like this:

And 10 like this:

After you are all finished editing the logo, save them. Open Resource Hacker again, and open the ntoskrnl.exe. Go to 'Action/Replace Bitmap...

Select Bitmap to replace for 1, then click on 'Open file with new Bitmap' and locate your edited boot logo. Then click replace. Follow the same steps with 8 and 10. Once you are finished with that, go to Save As and save your new ntoskrnl.exe to a directory other then the system32 directory (so it doesn't overwrite the original). Now because of Windows File Protection, you will need to reboot into safe mode (reboot, hit F8 before the boot srceen comes up) or boot off a DOS bootdisk (check out www.bootdisk.com for floppy boot images) to overwrite the original ntoskrnl.exe. Once you have done either of those, reboot, and that should do it.

Note: It can be done with Adobe Photoshop, and I assume other image editing programs that support palette importing. However, I have only tried it with Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop.

This was put together pretty fast, so there will be more updates on it (i.e. other program support, some sample boot logos, etc.).