Reinstalling Windows and Keeping Data Safe

[Smurf]

My hard drive died, luckily I have a second one (much younger and bigger), which I replaced it with, so now I only have 1 HD. Windows was installed on the HD that died, so now I've reinstalled it on my secondary, without fragmenting it. Thankfully most of my data on the secondary was saved.

Now I'm trying to figure out a way to keep all my data from my secondary HD so I can frag it and re-install windows again properly.
Any suggestions?

I'm on a network with at least 1 other computer with enough space to hold it, I'm going to ask the admin of that computer to allow me access as soon as she gets here.

 

[dduardo]

How much data do you have? If you don't want to get another drive there are a few options:

1. Resize the partition and install windows on the empty space. If data is taking up too much room this won't work.
2. Burn the data onto CD-R with the help of a Knoppix cd.
3. Copy the data to another computer with the help of a Knoppix cd.

http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=44

 

[exequor]

When you say that your hard drive died exactly what do you mean? Did you try to hook up the one that "died" as a slave?

 

[Smurf]

When you say that your hard drive died exactly what do you mean? Did you try to hook up the one that "died" as a slave?

I havn't tried that, would it make a difference? By died I mean in BIOS it showed it as undetected, I tried a bunch of stuff and it just doesn't want to work.

 

[Smurf]

1. Resize the partition and install windows on the empty space. If data is taking up too much room this won't work.

I hadn't thought of that, there should be enough room for it. I'm only somewhat familiar with partitioning drives, I'm using a WinXP professional CD, any thing in paticular I should do to ensure I don't lose my data accidently?

2. Burn the data onto CD-R with the help of a Knoppix cd.
3. Copy the data to another computer with the help of a Knoppix cd.

I've got 9mb of music I am not willing to let go at any cost, but would like to keep 20+ gb if possible. Knoppix website says it can hold up to 2gb? I don't have enough CDs. Admin to the other computer isn't back yet.

 

[Smurf]

S'ok, I transferred it over to the other computer and it's all working out.
But if anyone else has some knowledge I'd like to hear it, for future reference.