UNetbootin

Old Man with young thinkers

Asked by B Smith

For " an old guy " I take the time to get into understanding instructions and manuals etc.

Sometime I think I am seeing too much information.

Been hearing about this way of using Linux on a flash drive to save a hard drive on an old Gateway laptop the I'm pretty sure I know what happened to make it not boot.

At one point I had 3 people from various places around the world "help me" to get close; at least at one point I could see the C drive and see that the files were still there.

Most "helpers" wanted to know if I had the original XP disk that came with the laptop. After years of moving and recalling that one or more of my computers had the back up software on the D drive I told everyone that that was what I thought was the case with the Gateway. Turns out I was wrong and I found a still sealed XP Gateway disk still in the original box.

Put it in a few days ago and before long I got a message that " by clicking "yes" or "okay" I was agreeing to reformate the hard drive and therefore losing 6 years worth of "stuff". I couldn't manipulate to a different message although I managed to get to a bios screen which didn't give me much options.

It seems to me that using the jump drive with Unbuntu as the "distribution"? was the most recommended way to go. I also thought about pulling the drive and mounting it in an external case and doing it that way while considering a whole new hard drive replacement now that I found the CD.

Hope I haven't already trigger TMI. But here's the thing: on one hand the instructions seem easy but on another hand they seem to be mixed with numerous other options and I already think I got bad advice from the people who told me that I could load a second version of windows with the original CD. After the fact I find info that informs me that Gateway does things differently.

I never hit OK on the format info but the paranoid old guy in me wonders if The Damage has been done.

Used a 4 Gig Jump Drive reformatted to FAT 32 downloaded the UNebooten program. extracted the files and now have a scene with 4 instructions that I can not copy and paste here as I did

this line:

"After rebooting, select the USB boot option in the BIOS boot menu.
Reboot now?"

1 Downloading File (Done)

2 Extracting and copying Files ( Done )

3 Installing Bootloader (Done

4 Installing Complete, Reboot ( Current ) < this line is in BOLD letters.

Might be obvious to you young guns but sorry to say it is not to me yet. Since the gateway is not working at all I downloaded all of the above on my Dad's computer which is Win 7 and he already freaks out that I use it for anything.

Will rebooting on his desktop somehow result in a situation I wouldn't want?

I have an early appointment at the VA hospital and thought of putting his computer to sleep or hibernate until I come back this afternoon and hopefully find an answer from one of you young ones who find ways to fix just about anything.

I feel luck to live in a time with such an enormous wealth of knowledge that your guys/gals see the value in sharing with all asking only for donations!

I wonder if given the chance if you can show the olden ones how to run the world a little more efficiently!
On that subject is there a gathering place where brainstorming happens on subjects outside the Nano Universe of software and hardware?

Thanks for your help.

Brad

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Geza Kovacs (gezakovacs) said : 		#1

Oh god that was a long read. Bullet points next time, please. Anyhow, you only need to reboot if it's the computer you want to boot the flash drive from. So if you're creating it on the new computer and aim to boot on the old one, you don't need to reboot it.

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B Smith (beauteak4u) said : 		#2

Thanks, Sorry bout the long read.

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B Smith (beauteak4u) said : 		#3

I did not choose " This Solved My Problem " in my last reply to Geza because I hadn't tried the new jump drive/program.

This morning I tried it and it didn't work.

I'd be more than willing to be guided through a Q&A to

1 Avoid LONG narratives.

2 To learn how to think abbreviated so to get to the essence of what needs to be known about my specific situation.

3 So if Geza is willing I'm good with that.

4 If someone new who is or has read this wants to give it a shot I am open to it all.

one more "bullet point" if this is indeed what I am doing:

5 The information on the "C" dive is what I want to copy and save. Way back when this first happened I thought that I could remove the hard drive and mount it in an external case just to get to those files.

>>> Over the course of time numerous people suggested different methods to recovery. One of those methods showed me everything I wanted which was still on the hard drive but it could not be moved, printed, or sent to other devices.

Most of the people willing to help asked if I had the original OS on CD or DVD. I did not recall for sure if one existed. I found it
( The Original Gateway CD ) a month ago still in a sealed sleeve with the MS number on it.

>>> Popping it in and allowing it to auto run leads to a screen that says: This process will wipe the hard drive clean and install everything new as it came when I first purchased it. My choices at that point was "OK" only. Since that is NOT what I want to do,
 I simply unplugged the computer. ( The battery is unchangeable so unplugging turns it off immediately ) There were literally no other boxes to chose from.

Hope this is enough and not too much information.

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