Windows

[Hodgins Family]

Good evening!

> Ok, I don't think it is the hard drive though, because when I used the
> Windows XP recovery console, I was able to type in the command "dir" and 
> it
> showed everything that should be on my hard drive.

Well, that's disturbing.
Lemme see.
i) Your Live CD can't see your WinXP drive.
ii) Warty Live CD (on my box) can see my Win XP drive.
iii) Win XP recovery console can see your Win XP drive. Hallelujah! Your XP 
drive isn't toast. Good. Needed to know that. Thank you.

What is your Live CD? Is it Hoary or Warty? (Just curious...it won't help 
you here.)

> But, I can't use the
> recovery console to copy files to cds. Do you think that I could hook up
> another hard drive???

I think that the best solution to recovering your files is to:

i) hook up your XP drive to your Ubuntu machine.
ii) Boot your Ubuntu machine.
iii) Get to your GUI on the Ubuntu machine.
iv) Find the newly installed XP drive somehow (is your Ubuntu machine 
running Hoary or Warty)
v) Figure out how to mount the XP drive (it may be automatic or you may need 
to do this via the console).
vi) alter the permisssions on the files on the XP drive (enter the console, 
cd to the relevant folder/subdirectory, type "sudo chmod 0777 *" --  works 
wonders)
vii) copy the files to a) a partition on your Ubuntu box, b) copy to a USB 
stick, c) copy to a CD d) copy to a "I don't know what else". Data files 
don't really tend to care what sort of file system they are stored 
on...floppies, USBs, CDs, DVDs, etc. are all very different yet we put files 
on and off of these all the time. Don't sweat this bit.
viii) Return the Win XP drive to your WinXP machine, run DBAN (this program 
totally wipes all nonsense off a hard drive -- I LOVE it!)  and reinstall 
the OS, the programs, etc.
ix) Restore the saved files to the Win XP drive

Just my 0.04 worth (approx 0.34 USD)!

Rob