5 Reasons to Must Have Linux Live CD around Your Workstation

Linux is an open source platform and useful to keep your computing environment highly secured as compare to other OS manufacturers like Windows & Mac. There are many Linux distributions available to use Linux either in command or GUI mode, which mainly consists of Linux Kernel and large collection of software applications such as media player, spreadsheets, word processor, calculator etc.   

Using the Live CD (Any of the Linux Distros), you can run an operating system without even installing it and start exploring all the features. So, if you’re a novice computer user or just wants to try Linux, Live media CD is there for you. You can find a list of available Live CD list and choose any desired Distros.

This article includes some of the major benefits of having Live CD at your workplace that helps you in getting out of troubles with your PC or provides secured environment while using online banking facilities and so forth.

Before telling you the benefits of having Live CD, You’d better learn first about what exactly a Live CD is and how it works?

Live CD is a ‘ready to boot’ and use or so called operating system and can able to run on whatever computer system you were using even in the absence of internal hard disk. Live CD will run from the computer’s internal memory (RAM), so avoid you to perform any write operation around the internal hard disk. Don’t worry about the saved files or programs on your computer as Live CD or DVD or Live USB doesn’t require installation and therefore, leaves the computer settings and saved files behind.

Developers and experts uses this media to test newly released Linux distributions or to heal sick PC’s.  However, you can create a Linux Live CD using an ISO image file of a Live CD available on the various Linux distributions website such as Ubuntu, Knoppix or Puppy Linux. You can create bootable Linux Live CD from the downloaded image file using ISO Burner Software.

These are the three most popular lightweight Linux distributions that come with list of software packages. After downloading the ISO files from any of the aforementioned Linux distributions, you can burn it to CD, DVD or create a bootable USB flash drive. 

                                   

Note: Make sure that you’ve copied all your data successfully before creating a Live CD, if you’ve chosen to test Live CD using USB flash storage media. Below are the reasons that enforces you to must have a copy of ready to boot Live CD:

Reasons #1. Troubleshoot Problems with Windows
Definitely, Windows covers the largest area in operating system market share (around 92%, rest covered by Apples, UNIX, Linux etc.) and majority of users prefer to use it either at workplace or home. However, Windows has lot of exploits and security breaches that sometimes make windows inaccessible or completely fail to start at all and the possible reasons could be registry corruption, file system damages, virus/Trojan attack etc. Now what to do to get your stored files back and fix errors? Live CD comes with unique functionality to automatically load system drivers and OS capability as well as allows users to boot and navigate around your hard disk partitions. Therefore, you can easily copy your stored files to external storage media and perform remedy actions to troubleshoot windows.

However, sometime window gives error due to off failing hardware and similar problems where Live CD might not to the magic. So if you can’t able to boot using Live CD on the failed Windows, check your hardware first and seek for professional help if the situation seems tricky and out of your reach.

Reasons #2. Recover lost or deleted files
Deleted or lost files from the Windows system have high probability of recovery as the existing file system (NTFS) tends to keep a copy of the deleted files into their MFT (Master File Table) as long as the space is not occupied by new files. Live CD could help you to recover Linux data even from the failed hard drive and similar storage device where navigating through explorer window isn’t possible. In case, the drive is physically damaged and there is no other way left to recover data, try to image the failed drive and perform data recovery from the image. Please note imaging the drive will leaves documents or files that is damaged, virus infected or lost their properties.

However, it is strongly recommended to use another storage device of same or higher capacity to copy/save the recovered files. You can find more details about step by step recovery using Ubuntu Live CD on official website.

Reasons #3. Secured Banking Using Live CD
According to recent report organized by independent agency, users has higher possibilities of losing their confidential banking details if they’re using Internet Banking online on Windows. Though, experts would never recommend to do this and suggests to use Linux if you don’t want to be a victim of phishing or internet fraud.  

As already stated that Windows were used in majority in all over the world, most hackers or bad programs tends to create and circulate malicious programs only for Windows. Malicious programs can easily got access to the victims Windows computer and makes it easier for hackers to see all the stored files, see browser history and used credentials to access online bank accounts. Whereas, non-Windows OS such as Linux have less vulnerabilities to get caught by virus and thus ensures, much safer computing environment. Live CD provides fast and easy method to convert your Windows computer into Linux and perform the desired actions. Thereafter, you can easily remove or unplug the Live CD/USB and use your Windows computer as before.

Reasons #4. Not Resource Hungry
One of the most famous Linux distributions is Puppy Linux, which runs quite well on older hardware and doesn’t demand high computer memory to run programs properly. Unlike Windows, it won’t always hangs up or freezes at a single screen and instead, provides fast output to any generated requests.

So if you’ve quite old hardware configured computer machine and doesn’t want to invest in upgrading the hardware, you could make it your Linux computer and start taking all the benefits of using Live CD.

Reasons #5. Clonezilla Live
Clonezilla live comes as a standalone Linux distributions and serves great purposes like imaging or cloning failed drive and start recovering your precious files from created copy of image or clone. Clonezilla tends to clone only used blocks inside the drive and thus, provides fast cloning environment. Clonezilla supports list of file systems for Linux, Windows & Mac.

Undetected Hard Drive Data Recovery Using Free Parted Magic Linux Live CD

Hard drive problems are imminent and might throw you in deep trouble by giving you complete data inaccessibility. After which, one may not be able to access their precious stuff like years of work documents, memories captured in images, collection of movies etc. However, you are still able to recover files from the un-detectable hard drive by using third party software tools provided it is not severely damaged by physical means.

A traditional hard drive consists of equipments like platter, spindle motor, SATA/IDE cables etc., but at some point, your hard hard drive may not be detected by the PC as a cause of any of the hard drive equipments failed. In such situations, keep patience and leave your hard drive for no further use until you recover the 100% data intact.

Symptoms of Non Readable Hard Drive

1. Your PC won't detect the hard drive whenever you start the system. You will face error messages like operating system not found, insert bootable media, system files missing and so on.
2. Complete system inaccessibility or your system wouldn't start. Sometime your PC automatically detects the hard drive but you can face this again the next time you start the system.
3. Face problem in reading or copying data to/from your hard drive
4. Unexpected system shutdown etc.
5. System asks you to format the drive before using it. Note: Doing this will completely erase the existing hard drive data. So if you are able to get to the desktop anyway, immediately take backup before doing experiments.

Above mentioned symptoms clearly signifies that your hard drive has equipments that are about to fail and soon it will not be able to boot the system.

Quick Tips to Fix Problem Hard Drive
Sometimes, hard drive can face aforementioned problems due to some minor internal errors and you could simply fix it by your own, follow the below steps

1. If the drive is external, you can directly connect it to your motherboard as a secondary internal drive and see if you can access the data in that drive.
2. In case of internally connected drives, remove and plug-in it back externally using SATA/IDE connector to another PC. This is to ensure that internal power/data cables are not damaged.
3. Use system restore
4. Start repairing your system using system recovery options. It can be accessed easily by pressing and holding the F8 button just after starting your Windows 7 or Vista machine.

Though, if you already stuck in such situations and aren't able to access the drive anymore, follow the steps mentioned below.

Recover Data Using Parted Magic

Parted Magic : A Linux Live CD

You are still left with one amazing option that gives you best chance to have your files back in case of all above fails. Parted Magic, a Linux Live CD which can boot the system without installing Linux on it and shows you the existing data inside the troubled hard drive.

1. Download the latest version of Parted Magic and burn image to USB or burn image to CD/DVD.
2. For external hard drives, remove it from the USB connector and use SATA/IDE cables to connect it directly to your motherboard.
3. Insert/Connect your bootable media (which is either CD/DVD or USB) and restart your PC
4. At first, select option 'Default settings (Runs from RAM)' where you need to press enter to get to Parted Magic desktop screen.
                       

5. At the Parted Magic desktop screen, double click on item 'File Manager' which opens a window containing your problematic hard drives. From the same window, you can freely copy all your important content to any secondary/external storage media.

Parted Magic Desktop Scren

6. Once you copied all the desired content, you are free to shut it down.

Parted Magic can also show the drive health status using Disk Health menu available at the desktop screen. This is pretty amazing to know the status of hard drive and helps you decide weather to continue with the same or replace it immediately.

We are interested to know your opinion about using Parted Magic and any attempts you have made along with its results.