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WinXP Pro Disaster Recovery
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Chekote
Where’s my Banana?!?!
Where’s my Banana?!?!




Joined: 08 Mar 2002
Posts: 1540
Location: Dont know, looks kind of green
WinXP Pro Disaster Recovery
   

Well from the title I am sure you can guess this isnt good.

I just recently tried to install a second graphics card in my PC and it completely f&!#$d WinXP to the extent that it wont boot, even in safe mode.

I managed to get into it and found that it had also lost my most important HD partition, which after three evenings of messing around I managed to retreive.

Now my problem is this:

There is a file in a User directory on the original WinXP Pro installation partition, but I cant boot into that partition, so I have to boot into a seperate WinXP installation.

When I boot into the other install, it wont let me access the Users directory because of file permissions.

I can get to the file by booting from the XP CD and getting into recovery mode, but the damn ithing seems to be an ultra light dos mode that doesnt support half the crap I could do in Win9x.

I am trying to copy the contents of the User directory to another drive to I can access it from the other XP installation. But I cant seem to find any command line tools that let me copy all the files/directories recursively. I used to use XCopy in Win9x but this isnt available!

Does anyone know how to do this in the WinXP Pro recovery mode???

Thanks
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Post Sat Feb 21, 2004 2:48 am
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jmurdock
Old Fogey
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Joined: 11 Nov 2003
Posts: 1285
Location: the heart of acadiana they like to call it
   

Just checked my boyfriend's XP machine and xcopy exists. Could it be in a subdirectory on the XP CD that you haven't looked at? I remember seeing recovery utilities on other win9x CDs left uncompressed so you could use them in just such an emergency.
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Post Sat Feb 21, 2004 3:35 am
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hwfanatic
Average Fanatic
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Joined: 28 Oct 2002
Posts: 2850
Location: Belgrade, Serbia
   

If you could get your hands on a win98 bootable diskette, it could help, too.
quote:
When I boot into the other install, it wont let me access the Users directory because of file permissions.
Please explain this.
Post Sat Feb 21, 2004 8:39 am
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Myrthos
Spoiler of All Fun
Spoiler of All Fun




Joined: 07 Jul 2001
Posts: 1926
Location: Holland
   

quote:
Originally posted by hwfanatic
If you could get your hands on a win98 bootable diskette, it could help, too.

I don't think so, as in all likelyhood Windows XP was installed on an NTFS partition which is not supported by Win98.
As you still have access to the harddisk in recovery mode, the xcopy program is in \windows\system32. You should be able to use that.
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Post Sat Feb 21, 2004 9:17 am
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hwfanatic
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Joined: 28 Oct 2002
Posts: 2850
Location: Belgrade, Serbia
   

quote:
Originally posted by Myrthos
I don't think so, as in all likelyhood Windows XP was installed on an NTFS partition which is not supported by Win98.
Wasn't really thinking about that, since I would never install anything on a ntfs partition...
Post Sat Feb 21, 2004 9:29 am
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Val
Risen From Ashes
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Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA
   

Use the Recovery Console. The command you'll want to use is Copy. Unfortunately, this only copies one file at a time.
Also, using the Fixboot command will write a new boot sector on the system partition. Could be worth a try.
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Post Sat Feb 21, 2004 3:08 pm
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Chekote
Where’s my Banana?!?!
Where’s my Banana?!?!




Joined: 08 Mar 2002
Posts: 1540
Location: Dont know, looks kind of green
   

quote:
Originally posted by hwfanatic
If you could get your hands on a win98 bootable diskette, it could help, too.
quote:
When I boot into the other install, it wont let me access the Users directory because of file permissions.
Please explain this.


Windows XP has user directory permissions similar to Unix. You can only access the contents of the directory if you are logged into that installation as the User that owns the directory or the System Administrator.

quote:
Originally posted by Val
Use the Recovery Console. The command you'll want to use is Copy. Unfortunately, this only copies one file at a time.
Also, using the Fixboot command will write a new boot sector on the system partition. Could be worth a try.


Yeah I knew about that one, but that was exactly what I was hoping to avoid. I had a look through the directory and there arent that many important files in there so I guess I will just copy the ones that matter instead of the whole directory.

Thanks for the replies[/quote]
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Post Sat Feb 21, 2004 3:41 pm
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Val
Risen From Ashes
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Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA
   

Yeah, I think it's rather silly that they only have the option to copy one file over at a time. That's just stupid.
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Post Sat Feb 21, 2004 8:13 pm
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hwfanatic
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Joined: 28 Oct 2002
Posts: 2850
Location: Belgrade, Serbia
   

quote:
Originally posted by Chekote
Windows XP has user directory permissions similar to Unix. You can only access the contents of the directory if you are logged into that installation as the User that owns the directory or the System Administrator.
Windows XP, or rather just ntfs?
Post Sat Feb 21, 2004 9:39 pm
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Chekote
Where’s my Banana?!?!
Where’s my Banana?!?!




Joined: 08 Mar 2002
Posts: 1540
Location: Dont know, looks kind of green
   

Both. WinXP supports it via NTFS.
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Post Sun Feb 22, 2004 12:41 am
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cfmdobbie
High Emperor
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Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 1859
Location: London, England
   

Last time I had to get into a WinXP box to bypass security, I booted from a two-disk Linux distribution called Tom's Root and Boot (tomsrtbt). If you've got experience with UNIX-like systems that is always a possibility.
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Post Sun Feb 22, 2004 11:55 am
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goshuto
Wanderer
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Joined: 29 May 2002
Posts: 1142
   

@Chekote: a far easier way to access those files is to just take their ownership. Make sure you have Simple File Sharing disabled, then right-click the file or folder you want to access, click Properties, and then click the Security tab. Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab. Click the new owner, and then click OK.

You must be logged as administrator in your new WinXP install to do this.
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Post Sun Feb 22, 2004 3:41 pm
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Chekote
Where’s my Banana?!?!
Where’s my Banana?!?!




Joined: 08 Mar 2002
Posts: 1540
Location: Dont know, looks kind of green
   

I managed to get everything out in the end. Thanks for all the suggestions.

@ goshuto: Are you sure that would be possible? That sounds like it should not work. For example, if I installed two Linux OS's on a single machine and created a user account in one install, the other install would not be able to touch its files, even if I WAS logged in as root, since the root on one install is a different root than the other.

I presume Windows is setup this way, if not; they need to change it cuz that is a serious security flaw.
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Post Sun Feb 22, 2004 4:31 pm
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goshuto
Wanderer
Wanderer




Joined: 29 May 2002
Posts: 1142
   

@Chekote: no, it's not a security flaw. For that to work, you must be logged on as administrator on the computer that has the files you need. In other words, you need physical access to the files. If you do it from a remote computer, then the domain of the remote computer has to trust you (unlikely, unless the admin is a dolt). Even so, the system will generate a security warning.

I'm not sure about Linux, but I think that if the 2nd root has physical access to the 1st root files, then you can chown them to the 2nd root user as well.

This is why companies which take security seriously keep their servers (Windows/Unix/Linux/whatever) locked away in rooms no one can get into (sometimes even the admin himself has trouble getting in )
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Post Sun Feb 22, 2004 4:54 pm
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Val
Risen From Ashes
Risen From Ashes




Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA
   

quote:
Originally posted by cfmdobbie
Last time I had to get into a WinXP box to bypass security, I booted from a two-disk Linux distribution called Tom's Root and Boot (tomsrtbt). If you've got experience with UNIX-like systems that is always a possibility.

You know, that could work. I think I remember my professor mentioning one that he uses regularly for recovering clients' systems. I'll have to ask him which one he uses.
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Post Sun Feb 22, 2004 5:22 pm
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