Emergency Kit - save your files from a dead OS

How to Create and Use a Linux Mint Mate USB Flash Drive to Recover your Files​

   Note

If you are in a hurry and don't want to read the whole saga, skip to point #2 and watch the videos. That will give you enough information to do the job.
The method proposed here is really extremely easy. Even someone with little computer experience should be able to deal with it.

   Information

I am now getting suggestions for additional use of Mint Mate on the USB flash drive. I will list those in random order as they come in. Feel free to make suggestions on the thread and I will include them.

• It is a very safe environment to operate on the internet. Malware infections are quasi impossible and should they really happen you can recreate the flash drive very easily.
• Very often it is difficult or impossible to delete files under Windows. With Mint Mate on the flash drive you have an easy tool to accomplish those deletions.

1. Introduction


A total OS crash is not uncommon and then the last resort is very often to reinstall the operating system. The users who made provisions for that case by separating their user data into a data partition, or making frequent images, can easily recover. However, there are many that did not take any precautions and are desperately trying to recover their user data which is sitting on the OS partition that is no more accessible.

The traditional advice is to salvage the data with a live Linux CD from Knoppix, Puppy, DSL or alike. That works fine if you are familiar with any of those programs or take the time to understand them. But they all have one thing in common - they are very Linux and somewhat alien for a Windows user.

One Linux distro which feels comfortable for a Windows user is Mint Mate. There is quasi no learning requirement because things work in a very similar way as they work in Windows. You can judge for yourself by watching the second video.

The emergency kit I propose consists of a persistent Mint Mate OS on a USB flash drive. That means that any setup or modification you make to Mint Mate on the flash drive will be preserved and you don't have to redo it the next time you boot from the flash drive. The setup of such a drive is extremely simple as you will see in the first video.



2. Preparation and Requirements

We will use Mint Mate 14 which is the latest version and can be download from here. The download will take some time because it is 966MB large. And if you want the latest Mint Mate 17, it can be downloaded from here. The characteristics are the same as for Mint Mate 14.

Note: I haven noticed that not all download sites give you the same edition. In fact the downloads from some sites don't work as described. I suggest you use the James Madison Univerity site because that one I know works correctly.

We will also download and save the Universal USB Installer from here. With this program we can create the Mint Mate flash drive very, very easily.

As last component we need an empty flash drive formatted in Fat32 of at least 2GB but bigger is better. I use a 16GB USB2 flash drive which works very well. A USB3 flash drive would be even better. My USB2 flash drive has a data transfer rate of 30MB/sec and an access time of 0.8ms as measured with HD Tune.



3. Installation of Mint Mate on the Flash Drive

I will explain the extremely easy installation process of Mint Mate with the Universal USB Installer in a short video. Depending on the speed of your USB flash drive, that should take between 10 and 20 minutes.






4. Recover files with the Mint Mate flash drive

Here again a short video is the easiest way to explain the recovery procedure. This video was taken with a program installed and running on the flash drive.

The Mint Mate on the flash drive is a fully operational operating system. Due to the persistent nature of the installation it can be setup, tuned, and tweaked like an operating system on a system disk and the settings will remain. I often use this Mint Mate flash drive to run a PC. It is a very safe and fast method to navigate on the internet. Another safe method is to run Mint Mate in a virtual partition.

In the next chapter you find tutorials that explain how to setup Mint Mate and how to install it in a virtual partition.





5. Setup of Mint Mate




These tutorials explain how to setup Mint Mate. The first 7 videos cover the following subjects

• Basic setup after installation
• Refining the Theme and Skin
• Start Menu and Taskbar settings
• Terminal window setup
• Installing and uninstalling Programs
• Screen Recording
• Screenshots and snips

In addition, there is a link to a PDF with the topic : Installation of Mint Mate in VMware Player. This section contains a written tutorial and three videos.

If you are interested in the subject, download the control sheet (a PDF) from my Skydrive

Related Tutorials

---

• http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ate-live-cd-dvd-usb-use-emergency-backup.html
• How to Copy & Paste in Recovery Console on Windows 7 or Vista

 

[Layback Bear]

Thanks for the video.
I unhooked all other drives and I have installed to my Intel ssd and updating now.

I want a dual boot if I can come up with one without f8.
If it installed and updates correctly I think I going to like it.

I didn't partition anything. I will do that later if need be.

If I like it will I be able to Clone it to a VM using Windows 7 as a host.

 

[Layback Bear]

Is their anyway to shift to single click instead of double click?

 

[whs]

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/915109#/en-us/kb/915109

How to Enable or Disable Single-Clicking Feature in Windows

 

[Layback Bear]

Thanks whs. I know how to do it in Windows 7. I need to know how to do in Mint.
I so use to single click I'm going crazy wondering why things don't open in Mint.

 

[whs]

Thanks whs. I know how to do it in Windows 7. I need to know how to do in Mint.
I so use to single click I'm going crazy wondering why things don't open in Mint.

I don't really need that function. But maybe this scheme works:

https://www.howtoforge.com/gnome_single_mouseclick

 

[Night Hawk]

Glad to see that was answered quickly! The manner of how things are adjusted in a distro like Linux Mint are very similar to Windows in many ways in order to be more familiar to Windows users. The intent is simply to draw more Windows users to the distro. The Edit menu and scrolling to the Preferences is the common route for ubuntu, Linux Mint, Linux Mint Debian, and likewise with some others as well.

For custom installing a distro onto a flash drive you would first need to boot live from either a live stick or from a dvd where you see the Install option available and then go into the Administrator in order to run GParted or simply boot live from a GParted or other partitioning program that can partition and format depending on size either the entire flash drive or with a larger capacity stick like a 128gb create a large data NTFS partition up front and a smaller 13-15gb primary at the back end since Windows will only see the first where the data will be rescued to during any live recovery. The small 13gb used here is simply for the basics the distro needs as far as swap space and system files nothing else unless planning to run a number of programs on the distro itself. As a recovery tool however the bulk of the drive space is set aside for data recovery and transfers however.

The File System is VFat which will be Ext2, Ext3, or what is the most commonly seen at this time being the Ext4. Now to compare how well let's say Ext4 performs compared to NTFS a good article on that can be seen at Ubuntu Linux, Day 16: EXT4 vs. NTFS | PCWorld

Now for instructions for how to see Linux Mint installed onto a flash drive an older guide will still work as far as the basic steps are concerned to see a full custom install go onto either a small 16gb or a larger capacity drive depending on what the plans are for the distro itself. For the split on a larger drive you will need to edit the partition the distro is installed to in order to see that made the "Mount point \" where the Grub bootloader is pointed to as far as seeing the stick made bootable. How to install a Linux Mint Operating System into a USB Flash Drive: - Linux Mint Community


You will run into this type of message anyways during the install when prompted to edit the mount point by the installer itself before Grub is installed. When the installation is complete you will find out right away if things went well by immediately trying to boot live from the stick itself or end up needing to start all over with a second install. That's how that goes! Been there enough times over the years seeing live sticks made up even for the live only Debian based Knoppix put on a flash drive.

The advantage of the full install is also seeing GParted still included so when performing any live recovery op you can complete the task by reformatting even repartitioning a Windows drive if needed for example a drive either needs to be completely wiped or a new one is being put in once a dying drive's files are recovered. When partitioning live you later won't be seeing the small System Reserved partition when deciding to expand to the full capacity of the drive.

There is space left however about 200+mb for changing over from mbr to GPT or vice cersa where you might end needing to shrink the primary down just a hair if nothing was left unallocated. GParted supports Fat32 as well as NTFS and VFat Ext2-4 with the updated releases.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hmm Jack I installed Linux Mint MATE straight onto an unallocated Samsung 850 EVO from a stick and yet no problems except the terminology of Linux It boots and shuts down a lot faster than Windows and the packaged software just amazing.

Wolfgang I like a single click too and will try that later.

 

[Night Hawk]

That should come as no surprise since most distros are smaller then Windows to start with. As a rule Linux as an OS is seeing far less of the volume of processes being loaded when it starts up or you go to shut it down. Only a few distros have even grown anywhere near the size of any Windows version namely XP since Vista grew much large until 7 saw the MinWin kernel change the rule book a bit.

In fact the latest version Windows 10 being a larger version as Vista was has picked up where 8 had left off with the MinWin kernel despite the increase in size due to being a dual platform OS. Linux on the other hand is the condensed OS despite things like Wine and numerous other Linux app being prepackaged at times especially with Linux Mint in comparison to ubuntu, Debiam, or another base distro. The command structure however is still UNIX and Bash commands some never become "Linux Geeks" at!

 

[Runatir]

I have not gone through all 19 pages so I dont know If perhaps someone had similar issues but as I booted into linux mint and tried to acces my data I got this error message http://i.imgur.com/Y2nHCAE.jpg. Any thoughts on how to approach this?

 

[Night Hawk]

Is that for a 7 drive or newer version? From Windows 8 forward to 8.1 and now MS had introduced a hybrid boot that places the main system into a hibernation for seeing faster shutdown time. That produces a lock on the drive where booting live from any LM release poses a problem and where you may have to place the drive in either an external closure or install it on another Windows machine in order to have access.

With a 10 Pro x64/7 Ultimate x64 as well as dual 10 Pro/7 Pro dual on a second system I have ready access to both 10 drives while booted on the 7 side on each of the two builds. MS boosted security as far as non MS OSs are concerned there and why you are running into this.

 

[Runatir]

Oh I forgot to note that, yes its for win7 drive

 

[Night Hawk]

You will likely still to need to try it out as if it was an 8 or newer drive due to the security updates since that have come for 7. If the 7 install there had been password protected a similar secured state where Windows locked everything might have been seen in a different form which could explain the problem as well.

If this is drive on a system that suddenly went DOA on you it could also be possible the drive itself is where the problem was! That would also explain why any live data recovery attempts would fail. Slaving the drive internally on another system would seem to be the best option for either confirm or rule out that being a problem where you could run tests on the drive itself.

Here I had one drive later found to be in perfect working order one of two main storage/backup drives suddenly hard to access but fortunately as it turned out not one of the OS drives. Once out in an enclosure it worked like new! And there are then times when trying to get an MS volume mounted in another OS or trying to get a Linux volume mounted with Paragon's Ext5 for Windows app will seem impossible as well.

Here I keep a few self powered hard case type enclosures with on/off switch for spare drives or for simply finding out the status of any drive good or bad. I can toss in an old ide as well as Sata I, II, or 3 if not an SSD for trying a drive out. Those can come in very handy at times!

 

[Pigdog99]

Im trying to make the boot usb stick but the operation keeps hanging on "creating a persistent file". Ive trying different versions, 17.1,17.3 18.1 and it hangs every time. I only have 1.7 gigs of free space on HD but have the files on a 64 gig usb to write to another 32gig usb. Its a crappy HP laptop with Windows 8.1 and only 2gig memory. Would the lack of memory be causing the hang? Trying to make a bootable USB to recover files from non bootable Win7 computer. Thanks-Chris
Theyre Lexar Usb sticks

 

[z3r010]

Try the recovery disk here - Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - - Windows 10 Forums

 

[Night Hawk]

One of the older options as whs reflected at the mid point of the guide here was:

The traditional advice is to salvage the data with a live Linux CD from Knoppix, Puppy, DSL or alike. That works fine if you are familiar with any of those programs or take the time to understand them. But they all have one thing in common - they are very Linux and somewhat alien for a Windows user.

But instead of burning the option media like a cd-r you would see the particular iso for the distro you select written to a flash drive made bootable. That would be done by downloading the free version of Macrium Reflect to either create the iso needed from an existing live cd or dvd in the case of Linux Mint or another Debian release if not the more compact Ubuntu live Knoppix now being a bit outdated since the other distros have progressed to be a little cross platform user friendly while still being Open Source. Step 2 in the guide for this then has you download the YUMI Multiboot USB Creator when then takes the iso made or downloaded from SorceForce or an alternative site and sees that create the usb rescue drive. MACRIUM REFLECT - Create Bootable Rescue USB Drive - Windows 7 Help Forums

Another outside source if needed would be the ISO to USB guide with the freeware app seen at ISO to USB Often used for Windows sticks as well as at times for varying Linux distros. The Windows USB/DVD Download Tool was a bit more commonly advised for 7 a few years back as one more option available but not for much longer it appears since the Codeplex site where you download the free MS tool from will be shutting for good soon! Windows USBDVD Download Tool - Home

The Overview and Instructions for use are seen at the MS Online Store found at: Windows USB/DVD Download Tool - Microsoft Store

That still remained the 1.0 version for the tool however was the Recovery Drive z3r010 pointed is quite a bit more updated as a few other freewares out on the web as far as seeing iso images written to usb. If you go to use any live tool the one other to mention here is making the target the files are being retrieved isn't the reason the OS went DOA! A Failed Drive would then likely the help of a data recovery service where the drive's platters are carefully handed under controlled circumstances to avoid air and other types of exposures untile the data is recovered either to another drive or blank media.

 

[Callender]

If you go to use any live tool the one other to mention here is making the target the files are being retrieved isn't the reason the OS went DOA! A Failed Drive would then likely the help of a data recovery service where the drive's platters are carefully handed under controlled circumstances to avoid air and other types of exposures untile the data is recovered either to another drive or blank media.

See thread here: Stuck in startup repair loop and no safe mode access - Windows 7 Help Forums

Something screwed with drive letters and possibly MBR.

 

[Night Hawk]

Hear any tapping sound at all from the drive? You may have to take the side cover if this is on a desktop to hear it over the cooling fans however. Once a drive gets worn the arm with the read/write heads will start slapping up against the spindle unless being an SSD type drive where it would simply go doa like a memory dimm or flash drive might fail.

On the pair of desktops here provided you are not running a labtop where a friend kept seeing one drive after another quit suddenly from his youngest rough handling it most likely! I had to put Vista on fresh for each new drive until the parents got into a pair of used 8.1 labtops bought off of someone else fussy about things and lazy to learn in that selling after just buying! Just lately on the main build's 10 side where I dual boot 10 and 7 across two separate drives in case one fails having two OS drives in the second mini tower as well for testing purposes the main suddenly would not get past the lock screen and I then had to boot into safe mode hard at first to get the F8 key to take since the usb support in 10 was shaky!

Finally once up in safe mode I created a new temp account since the automatic login to the Admin account tweak had failed likely to a partial attempt at the WU in trying to download and install the latest Creators build for that version of Windows. The thing to note as to why z3r0101 pointed at the 10 recovery has to do with seeing things like the command prompt and other standard MS type tools commonly seen in Windows since the 2000/XP days.

What I suspect however could or even would likely be needed if not wanting a full clean install of everything from scratch would the need for a possible repair install of 7 where all the main system files are refreshed while your personal files and most apps won't be lost if this is a rather old copy of Windows now seeing continuing headaches! The difference however that would be the absolute last resort to follow failed attempts at this only being a minor issue but stubborn to get at. And that also why when things are going well that will be the best possible time to see a full system image backup created you can opt to restore at times like this when no solution might be found.