How To Backup Data Without Booting Into Windows
Vložit
- čas přidán 10. 09. 2024
- How To Backup Data Without Booting Into Windows
If your computer won't boot and your getting some sort of BSOD error due to a corrupt windows or registry then you may be wondering is there a quick and easy way to backup some files from that computer without booting into the windows operating system? Well the answer is yes. You can boot to a windows CD or USB and still recover data.
This works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10.
Let me show you how:
You need a Windows CD or USB with Windows on it.
You will need a storage option like a second USB or External drive.
1. Boot to Windows CD or USB ( You will need to change the boot order)
2. Click Repair this Computer
3. Navigate to Windows directory
4. Open Command Prompt and type notepad.exe
5. Backup your data.
Join our forum
www.briteccompu...
How does this video not have more views? I've been searching online for the past few hours how to access my files and can't believe it's this simple. Thank you so much, liked and subscribed!
hmmm
i have been trying to resolve this for almost a week now
Your recovery process (using notepad as file explorer) is brilliant ! My boot sector was fried and the "pros" that I consulted said HDD must be re-imaged with all data lost. I got it all back using this method. THANK YOU !!!
You have sincerely saved my life. I enjoy writing stories, have done so for years, and I post them online to read. I haven't written anything in so long due to depression, but I got back into it and started sharing it again. Then my laptop took a shit on me, and I feared I had lost everything. Now I know there's hope! Maybe not for the laptop itself, but I can recover the important things. Thank you so much!
what would u do if u had factory reset your laptop and ur usb was destroyed ???
Not enough words to tell you how thankful I am! My computer has been basically unusable for the last three days and I was afraid to do anything because my latest backup was very old, thanks to you I can now try and get my computer back, while keeping all of my data! Thousands thanks, Antoine
You have literally just saved my life. I thought I was going to lose all my personal data when reinstalling windows but thanks to you I don’t have to. Great video!!
Were you literally going to die? I doubt it.
Thank you so much this made my day you will probably never read this but I don’t care
I am gonna like this so that someone can see this
And you will probably never read this but i don't care
My M8 404
@@IDMYM8 I’m liking your comment cuz it was nice but you will probably never read this but I don’t care
I thought I would drop this so that you notice that I noticed your stupidity... but you will probably won't see this and I don't care🤣
@@brianbanji2997 oh yeah... well I’m replying and you probably won’t see this but I don’t care
Thank you so much!!! You saved ALL of my memories from the past 8 years. Thank you!!
What you can do as well instead of manually copying and pasting or rather sending each individual file over to an external drive/ another flash drive, you can right click Desktop, and send it to your external drive, thus backing up everything in that entire directory; don't be scared if some files don't appear in file explorer, they will be copied over and you can check that by opening up the external drive and finding all the files copied that didn't appear through Window Installer Media tool when you copied them over. I hope this helps someone out there! Or choose ALL files :)
This shows the importance of Disk Encryption, as anyone can easily boot up a windows installer media tool from external flash drive and thus read your entire filesystem without needing your password, and without needing Windows to boot properly, and you can easily bypass and change the local password on Windows.
@@futuresocieties. great idea
@@debajitpal5238 thank you. Stay safe.
@@futuresocieties. but one thing is that it takes a lot more time
Out of all videos in youtube and all of the articles that I googled, this is the only thing that helped me access my files. I run into some error and my computer stuck in 'diagnosing your pc'. Now, I was able to back up all my files and reset my computer. Thank you so much! You're awesome!
Bro I'm having the repair disk error... and this is saving me... I'm taking the whole night to just back up my personal files
THANK YOU SO MUCH
Did you use a flash drive or cd
@@unproxified9184 Flash drive
You have saved a lot of people from having to let go of their memories. I just saved 14 years worth of images. Thank you!
After the latest Win 10 update my system failed to boot. I wish I had viewed this tutorial earlier. Instead I lost some data installing the last backup. I am prepared now thanks to your work..
This guy here just saved my life. My PC went into blue screen and didn't turned on. Would have lost my important files without this video.
Thanks so much for this video!!! I saved my precious files from my pc that crashed overnight!! GOD BLESS!! I stayed up entire night trying to fix my Win 10 system, but never recovered, so thought had lost all my data. Really appreciate this support!!
OMG - You are a life saver! My laptop crashed yesterday after MS installed More updates, against my will, and I have not been able to get it to boot into safe Mode or anything. Ironically, I have a recent ISO file on my hard drive. I went into cmd prompt and thought I could do an "old fashioned" Copy file onto a flash drive, but I guess DOS copy commands don't work in Windows10. I'm an "old school" techie, so I don't know how to do much at command prompts anymore. I did a Dir on all .EXE programs in my Windows directory and was looking for some way to copy my files over to a flash drive. I did a DISM to see the parameters but everything was giving me an error. I typed DISM.log and surprisingly it opened in NotePad! So, I was looking at my devices trying to see if the system was seeing the flash drive or not. I looked at the File Structure using NotePad but didn't know I could COPY and paste files over like you did! That's amazing! I was SO close, but you are amazing. I love your videos! Now I just have to figure out if I can actually make a bootable flash drive with the ISO file that's on my computer, because I just made that one in January before a bunch of other Updates came down. Microsoft is causing me WAY too much work with having to fix my computers after their Horrible Feature Updates that I don't even want! I spend more time fixing my computers than actually getting work done.
It looks like the same thing happened with me yesterday. I'm guessing you ended up having to reinstall windows after backing up all your precious data?
Thank you for saving all my son's school work and making me a super mum
I am almost finished copying everything onto the external drive according to your video (thank you!) but its now saying "not enough memory to complete this action".. there is still plenty of disk space on the the backup drive, is there a way to free up some memory so i can get the last of my data backed up? thanks
One more thing that i found!
You can use winrar!
Winrar can show hidden files/folders. It makes it easy to backup Appdata/Programdata of a particular user
@@carlos642 you have to get to its installed folder through the notepad's file explorer
I am loving the internet and YOU at the moment. A few years ago I would have been stuck on this and would certainly have lost all my data. A solution so simple. As others have commented, a bloody life (and marriage) saver! Thank you very much!!
Thanks man, saved my files then formatted the computer. 5 Star
Thank you very much for this, this is what I wanted and wish could have found earlier, although you only recommended to back up small files using this method, I used it to backup about 500-600 GBs from my internal drive :-) thanks a lot again.
Thanks a lot to you as well I was looking for someone who has tried backing up larger files as well. And as it seems it worked just fine for you😃😃
I tried to copy over a 4GB ISO file to a flash drive and it wouldn't do it. Even though I have like 15gb available space on the flash drive. I need that iso file because I created it in January in case MS updates crashed my computer. Sure enough updates crashed my computer yesterday and the iso file is on the drive. I think what he meant, in the video, was to copy smaller files, not big Gig file sizes. So I'm still stuck. I need that iso file and can't copy it over the way explained in this video.
Please can you help me sir
@@aysartube9982 I'm not an expert, just did what he showed in the video to backup data and it worked for me. Please follow the same steps.
@@prodigy25792 How long did it take to backup all those files because I want to backup around 600 GBs?
Please help me.. when I'm in the notepad looking for files I see the drives but they are inaccessible only my external usb drive and the bootx drive appear why...:(
Were you able to access ur files? I had the same problem, but was able to get my file the other way.
>This pc
>Windows (drive)
>Users
>( your name or name of the own, click that folder)
>Then you see your download, documents or desktop folders there.
@@nobuhleprecious2399 I'm only getting bootx I think the hard driver died I'm so fucked
Absolutely Brilliant, I have spent about 4 hours trying to recover a folder of 500 wedding jpg`s in my laptop with this re-boot loop. Everything thing I have tried will not repair this fault, its trashed my OS
Brian has once again saved the day showing how to recover these files and folders
It so easy when instructed by an expert
this is a perfect way of recovering files from a failed disk, I'll use this method from now on, thanks a lot!
Look, Dude, The operating system of my pc restarts all the time. When you think it will start to work normally, it restarts again. So tell me how can I keep everything I have on my pc and fix this issue. I don't want anything to be deleted, bc I have too much information and programs, and I want to keep it. So tell me what are my options? What can I do only using BIOS? Can I make that way a backup of my windows 10? I'm confused, when you do backup, do you put those files on the USB, and at the same time on the USB, there is an iso file of windows? How do you start the program?
I want to thank you very much for this tutorial. I was able to recover 12 years of my projects from my dying hard drive. You're OG for this one
You can't believe how much I thank you this tutorial. Two days tring to make different bootable usb to access the files... and this worked like charm!
Unfortunately it's not working for me, so close yet so far. When I get to the open files in notepad part. Drive C (where windows at and where files I need to recover) doesn't open. Thanks tho, this is useful for future issues where this could be a solution
you are a saviour i was not able to backup or delete files , its been days i was about to throw my laptop to the service, thankyou so much
Thank you so much! All my important files are saved and I can now reinstall windows.
THANK YOU SO MUCH YOUR A LIFE SAVER 😭! I didn't know how I was going to get my files back at all until this tutorial!! I had so many art files saved on there too- glad to get them back haha thank you again 💖
Oh my god... It blows my mind how simple this is. thank you so much man, you just saved me from losing years of hard work
You are a hero! read this knowing you have made some extremely happy! My GF had lost access to all her Uni work, its now 0245am after hours of effort and your video means she is not royally screwed. Please keep doing what you're doing! I hope you read this and we both wish you all the very best with the channel.
Of course not Andrew, the filesystem is completely readable not only through Windows installer creation media tool, but through a live bootable Linux os. Thus, the importance of encrypting your disk is important, as anyone can easily change your local password on any account and retrieve and view all your files.
I think you stayed some where with Microsoft developers because you understand it very deeply.
Thanks from Pakistan
I think this method not working for password protect pc
Thank you so much for such simplicity! Any other method I've seen suggested uses far more CMD prompts and appears to be less straightforward; with this I copied my entire D drive (c.800GB) to my external SSD in about 30 mins. My Win 10 OS decided to commit seppuku recently but at least I've been able to retrieve my photos and files.
Thank you so much. This helped me recover my data.
Four years late but thank you! Really simplified my life
I was a bit skeptical since it looked so easy, but it actually worked. You saved me time and money, so I am eternally grateful!
Thanks a lot...
I recovered all my important datas using this method while my window was crashed
thank you very much. I've been stuck to other yt videos for weeks in finding the right method until I found yours.
I got a problem where when I’m in notepad searching for my files, I look at the local disk and it shows that something is occupying it’s space but when I look for my files there not there? I recently reset my pc choosing the option where I keep my files seeing if my problem would be fixed. Could resetting my pc could have cause the vanishing of my files?? I’m depressed and need help
those who are getting errors while writing notepad.exe, here is solution create a file (using cmd) with .txt extension and open it.
thank you it really helped me. first I didn't have enough space in my c drive after watching your video I managed to get more space in c drive.
thank you you just saved me 6 months of game development all of my games would have been gone and i would have probably stopped making games for a year
Love your channel. You videos are to the point without veering off-topic like so many others do. I recommend your channel to everyone who needs help with their computer. After 25 years of IT I'm done fixing other people's machines. I say let Brian do it. :-)
Thanks for the support
I'm giving this
E:\windows>notepad.exe command but it won't open. Like in yours
same
Is the windows directory in your E drive?
I have a BIG problem, when i try to boot in the cd, my mouse and keyboard just stops working, any idea how to fix that? It works fine in Bios and all that.
Not enough words to tell you how thankful!
Thank you sir for the directives.
Please, I'll like to know if I can still recover my files from a 301 error harddisk with the system already in loop?
this probably saved my life rn
Great tutorial. I will try to back up files when my hard drive arrives but can confirm notepad works and all my files are still visible.
great tip, never thought of that, i've recovered files using dos commands or by booting thru linux, but using notepad makes much more sense :)
Is there a way to use any of my internal drives as the backup instead of an external HDD?
I can get as far as notepad, and opening. However, my folders are unrecognisable. My documents, etc, aren't even there. If i click on libraries, downloads, etc, it won't even open the folders. The menu just stays still with the same options as before.
Same, I could get to notepad, but nothing would open
@@iRecordRandomVids My entire hdd was dead, it turned out. Piece of junk. I'm only using laptops with ssds from now on.
Siegfried C looks like I’m going to do the same 😂
Any solution
@@timothywilson570 The HDD is dead, so unless you're willing to hire a professional with the big machine that can get the stuff off your dead HDD (very expensive), I suggest u start looking into replacing it with an SSD if possible.
Been searching for hours for a solution like this. Amazing, can't thank you enough
This video is exactly what I was looking for. It saved the day. Thank you so much!
I'm trying to backup mod files and maps for payday 2 and some other things from the main drive how do I show hidden items?
This is brilliant ! Thank you !
I need to move many files because my Win 7 hard drive seems to be failed. So I found that you can open TWO instances of notepad and drag/drop folders from one "open" window to another !
It will lag during the copying process but be patient.
wow, really great video i cannot believe what I am seeing it with my eyes, i was looking for backup my laptop, i can't explain this video solved my problem i was so worried ,after watch the video now this worked perfectly for me thank you so much brother..
This worked up until i tried opening up notepad 😅 notepad refused to open so it seems like something super important must have been damaged in my pc! Doing some work arounds and hoping for the best! I'm glad this was able to work for others though
Sir, do we need to same Windows version as bootable that is in my pc or I can use any version as bootable?
Any version
Simple and best way to backup. Thanks sir from Chennai India
Man thank you this is hands down the best recovery video I could find. You’re awesome.
This is awesome, sure it's weird to use notepad as an file explorer. But it works!!! Best tutorial video around. 😘
Thanks a lot for the tutorial!
You're welcome.
I usually get by on Kaspersky Rescue Disc, but it's always good to have a variety of methods available.
thank you so much my bro you made may day. i was very worried about my lost data just cause of you i m very happy now. god bless you and your family.
2 Years we are doing this... :) Thx Brian. !!
Thank you so much you saved my day bro , i was worried for losing important files in my pc your video helped me 100%
Your videos are first class.
THANK YOU!!!!!! My computer crashed and before reinstalling windows I've been trying for days to backup my files to a USB using the Xcopy and copy commands but to an avail...
I am only seeing three drives C, D and X. D is myUSB with windows 10. C is an external hardrive. I cannot see my drive with windows on it. Any suggestions? Jim
Omg! I had to buy a new computer because my other one won't start! Thank you so much for the notepad idea! This helped save my important files!
What if windows is all together corrupted so even notepad won't open... Can you help in such case please.
Thank you so much I had so many important videos for CZcams and other important music and documents I thought I would never get these back thank you so much you're such a lifesaver
I had encrypted a folder and I am not able to copy it to the backup drive as it says the file is encrypted. I tried cmd to decrypt it but that didn't work either. Is there anything I can do?
if i copy all C files is it include all application windows then when i paste into new windows will restore all application windows the old one? appreciate your answer thanks
Only paste the important files as if you paste windows it's not going to fix and it might overwrite another uncorrupted Windows.
hi i was able to reach command prompt but then i realize my drive is gone.. this was a really helpful tutorial but i guess my hard drive really broke.. ;(
Thank you! My Windows crashed to an unopenable point after a driver update. Thanks to you I can recover my documents!
God bless you! I tried live cd's and everything like 12 times and did not work, but this was super easy since I only cared about one file with my thesis. Thank you.
Thank you so much. I watched many of your videos to solve PC issues. Thanks
Everything worked perfectly. I just recovered my files. Thank you very much sir.
My laptop starts in BIOS mode and shows no Boot Priority. I have disabled Fast Boot and Secure Boot and tried Enabling CMS among other things. I am being told to use windows on a thumb drive to boot but will that delete any of my data?
Thank you so much you saved my important files and I love you
Awesome video! Worked like a charm to save lots of pics and files! Thank you!
I have a windows not booting problem, but I can see all my file. It is always booting to Boot menu and when I select
It restart again. Why ?
In my system the CPU turns on but I can't see anything in the monitor.. the monitor is also working.. i have checked the monitor with another system.. so in this case can i use this method for data backup as i can't see anything in the monitor.. kindly guide me.
Thank you so much for this video! You do not know how grateful I am.
Another great alternative! Thanks so much Mr. B
You're welcome.
Sir this is simply awesome. You really helped in getting my family data. God bless your sir
Worked fro me up to Notepad. When I open document or any folder the folders are empty. Why?
I'm wondering what happens when we try to run File Explorer itself?
did you try it?
I can't see folders that are locked behind the admin user and I can't see the user folder itself just public. So I can't open desktop, downloads, pictures etc. Is there a way to bypass this
Thank you so much for this tutorial! Saved all my data!! The notepad hack is absolutley genious!
I respect your video because it is so genuine but this is really a tricky method...
There is no progress bar for bigger files? I am trying to backup my user’s files and my cursor isnt showing the loading symbol whenever i move something. I can’t tell if its transferring the data or not
When I type notepad.exe it goes to next line Windows> and notepad is not opening. What is happening now?
Thanks man! this is the only one that I find really easy
Thanks dude! I couldn't have done it without you!
Thank you so much for saving my data which was almost gone during my fresh installation