[AT] OT - big computer problem

[Indiana Robinson]

	One possibility... Go to ebay and get a copy of Linux on a "live CD". 
Ubuntu is probably the easiest for a windows user to understand without 
a big learning curve. Unless your hard drive has physically crashed your 
system will boot to the Linux (You may have to change the bios at setup 
to boot from the CD first). You will not be able to run Windows programs 
but it will read your files and you can move them to another media using 
Linux. Note: it "must" be a "Live CD" in order to boot.
	Knoppix or Puppy are two other good choices in case your system is not 
up to Ubuntu's minimum system requirements but since you indicated it 
was pretty new it should be OK.
	Puppy Linux is sometimes sold as a Windows rescue disk. It is only 
about 100 MB. Another good one called Damn Small Linux is only about 50 
MB. You can download the ISO file for them since they are smaller 
(Google search) but then you need to download a program like 
BURNCDCC.EXE to burn them making them a "Live CD".


And here you all thought I was going to say to "check the grounds"...
;-)


-- 


"farmer"


"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
   -- Charles Duell, Commissioner of US Patent Office, 1899


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Francis Robinson
Central Indiana, USA
robinson at svs.net