How To Save Desktop

Saving your computer desktop from failure is one of the most important procedures you may have to undertake. As a side note it is always good to maintain a backup of important files and folders, preferably on an external USB drive. The process of saving a desktop depends largely on the reason of failure. viruses, hard drive failure, spyware, these all can cause desktop failure. Also wage your time. For some people it's not financially productive to repair a desktop as it can be too time consuming.

1. Try and discover the reason for desktop failure. Viruses and spyware can change system files and make the desktop unusable. If there is a hard drive failure of some kind, the desktop computer may not start at all. Many users would begin a process of attempting to load programs to remove possible viruses from the computer. That is if the viruses has not already made it impossible to install programs.
2. Download an Ubuntu Linux disk to cd from their website. Burn the ISO, and boot it in the CD-Rom drive of your computer. Reboot the computer and Linux will boot. Pick try Ubuntu without changing any files. This will give you access to a “live desktop." It's similar to windows, but is running simply from the disk drive. Now you can open, "my computer" and see your windows drive. If you have an external drive plugged in you can copy any files/folders you feel are important. Copy them to an external drive, NOT the Ubuntu drive or desktop as that will go away once you reboot the computer.
3. If your saving your desktop from a virus, you have the choice between browsing Windows and the registry for infected files, or rebooting into windows. To see your registry files, click on your XP hard drive from linux, and go into the windows folder, then to the system 32 folder. The kinds of files which point to infection are registry items. Look for suspicious items and items that are misspelled to try and fool you. Currently there are no worthy programs for scanning and removing bad registry items. Virus and spyware removal programs are often unable to remove bad registry items from Windows. So the process is unfortunately a manual one, and should be done from outside windows.
4. If your saving your desktop from hard drive failure, then it may prove difficult to access your files in the windows drive. If the drive makes noises such as clicking or buzzing, then this indicates you have a hard drive failure. A computer repair technician can replace defective parts on a hard drive, but this process is delicate, and expensive. Also in this situation it may prove impossible to recover your desktop fully.

Resources:

Registry repair