Thursday, July 9, 2015

security - How can I access data on my Vista hard drive if the computer crashes?


Every couple years I get a new computer with a new hard drive and then just connect the original hard drive as the second one so I have access to all of my data in case I forgot to back something up.


This worked well with XP but with Vista, I recall this didn't work, there was some kind of security error when I tried to access the data on the drive from a fresh system.


So now I've got a computer with Vista running on a 250GB hard drive.


I regularly back up my most important data, but how can I be sure that if my computer suddenly crashes (currently having problems with my CPU/heatsink/fan), that I have access the data that is on the drive. Is there something I can do, e.g. create some backdoor password, so that I can access the data on this drive by plugging it into another computer as a slave drive?


Answer



I used a Ubuntu Live CD to get access to the drive without too much trouble, you would need a secondary/external hard disk to copy your files to.


The only problem you could have is mounting NTFS disks in Ubuntu (don't ask me!) and getting access to password protected files, but as long as you don't stick important stuff in folders with Windows restricted access it shouldn't be a problem


Edit: NTFS support should be fine in Ubuntu these days


Anyone with more specific Live CD experients, go ahead an edit my post.


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