Hi everyone, I'm totally new to this so please excuse my ignorance...

I'm trying to help a friend recover files from her computer which is currently unable to startup (Win XP). When it starts, the computer automatically reboots itself at the XP title screen and just reboots over and over and over.

So anyway, she needs to somehow recover files before reinstalling XP. I was hoping we could do one of two things with BartPE:

A) get online and download, install, and use an FTP program to upload her files to a server

- or -

burn her files to CD

Are either of these things possible? I just finished making the BartPE disc but when I tested it on my computer (Win2000) it looked like I was only able to access the contents of the cd. Is this because the BartPE cd was made with XP, an OS that I'm not running? When I run this disc on my friend's computer, will I have access to Internet Explorer and other programs on her hard drive?

On one of my previous posts, likuidkewl suggested that I "use a partitioning program from inside PE to create her a partition to keep the files on"... but I have no idea how to do this!! And even if I were to manage to accomplish the partition I'm not sure I'd know what to do next. As you can tell, I know next to nothing about computer technical issues of this scale, but I'm trying to do my best here...

Thank you~

Michael

FYI: my friend's computer is a laptop, so pulling out the hard drive isn't really an option. I'm using a laptop too... would networking them together help at all...?

If you dont have much experince with BartPe then the two options you are looking into maybe very difficult.
The partitioning option would probly be the best bet. Check out BArts website and it will break down how to add in all the application modules to get this sorted out.
PArtition MAgic 8 would probley be the most simple, just casue of its layout and GUI.
More or less all you would have to do is resize the drives current partition and then make anotehr small partiton to store all the files your friend requires.
Then reboot and reinstall, format the fisrt partiton and then once you boot into Windows, the second partition will have all the saved information.
IF you like after that you can then boot with Bart PE once again and delete the backup partiton and resize the main to take up the entire drive. THat is after you retrieve the data back tot he main disk.

If you are to go about using one of the opions you have mentioned, i would reccomend the seccond one, ie the burning. You can add in an appication like Nero pretty simply, but there may be some hold ups if you have some irregular IDE controller.

All i can say is read up on barts website, he has some decent instructions on how to do all this that i have mentioned.

|Drew|

Thank you all for your help - the issue's been resolved and hopefully I'll never have to use a recovery cd again!! But if I do, I'll know how to deal with it.

Thanks again~