As a Linux fan, I am fast considering Linux to be an essential tool for a PC repair technician. While I enjoy it as a standalone operating system, I am finding it to be a helpful tool even in a Windows environment.

It's not infrequent to find a computer with healthy hardware but an operating system that has somehow gone south. Longtime Windows users have probably experienced that one time or another. While I personally backup my data, not everybody does, and there may be information on the drive that the end user wants retrieved before you do the wipe and reformat.

With that in mind, I'd like to offer a brief tutorial in how to use Linux in data recovery. You can use expensive software to accomplish the same thing, but the advantage of Linux is that it costs nothing for the OS.

You will need:

--A Linux live CD (I use Ubuntu, and this tutorial will be written according to that bias).

--An external storage source, such as an external hard drive or a flash drive.

Make sure your BIOS is set to boot to CD as the first boot device.

Shut down the computer, and turn it back on. Press a key to boot to CD when prompted to do so.

If you've never used Linux before, the steps here will vary according to the distro, but the concept is virtually the same. In Ubuntu 7.04, go to "places", then to "computer". You will see all of the drives on the computer.

Open the source drive in one window, and the destination drive in another. Make sure file permissions are set appropriately on the destination drive.

On the window with the source drive, select the file or folder to be copied, then select "File" and "copy". On the destination drive, right click inside the folder and select "paste".

It's as easy as that. You can now wipe your hard drive knowing your data is backed up.