Using Software

[ibmeubu]

Bit of a newbie here. I have a hard drive that has a corrupt operating system and it will not boot. How do I use this software in a situation where I can't run an executable program? I would like to completely wire my drive clean before doing a clean install of the new OS.

[poehere]

If it is only a OS corruption you should be able to put this on another PC and open it up and read your files and save them.

If not you will need to put this on with ddrescue and clone it to another HDD. Then from this recover your files.

[microsoftengineer]

HI
you can use Pre-install XP, Ubuntu or try Hirence Bootable CD Good Luck.........

[Alt(R-TT)]

You may try a bootable version of R-Studio. This article explains how: Emergency File Recovery Using R-Studio Emergency.
R-Studio is a pay program, but it allows you to estimate chances for file recovery before buying.

[Vulcan]

@ibmeubu,

I have a hard drive that has a corrupt operating system
...
I would like to completely wire my drive clean before doing a clean install of the new OS.

[I'm assuming you mean "wipe" the drive. If you mean something else, then please clarify.]

If you're installing a new OS and don't care about the existing data (as your question implies), then there is rarely an advantage to wiping the drive, no matter how "corrupt" the existing OS is, provided that you (or the OS installation program) deletes any old partitions and the partition table.

If you really want to wipe the drive, and don't care about any existing data, then go and research "DBAN" which is a bootable CD / USB image, that can wipe (overwrite) any existing drives in a system. It doesn't matter how corrupt a previous OS is when using DBAN, since it boots its own OS (which is the same as the earlier suggestions from microsoftengineer).

You could also use the drive's own internal "Secure Erase" functionality to wipe the drive, but the utilities that can do this may also require temporary changes to BIOS settings and have other challenges, so I'm not suggesting using them.

One concern is whether your diagnosis of a corrupt OS (and not any other kind of problem) is correct. Over the years, I have seen many other problems wrongly diagnosed as being a "corrupt OS", when the cause was actually elsewhere. Their misdiagnosis caused the user to waste lots of time reinstalling an OS, and then having exactly the same problem again - sometimes immediately, sometimes later (depending on what the real problem was). Therefore the (long-term) success of your plan to (re)install an OS, depends on your diagnosis of the problem you think you're trying to solve, being correct...

[ibmeubu]

Thanks to all of you that responded.