live cds for system rescue

[nicolaus corelius]

how many people use live cds just for recovery files, getting drivers, etc? also what do you guys think is the percentage of technicians who use livecds for those purposes? my technician co-worker says that a big majority of them never used them and just take out the hdd and connect it to an enclosure. i mean cmon, you gonna do that with sonys and void the warranty

[Panama Red]

I've seldom bothered with a live cd. My preferred method is pull the hdd. By the time I see a repair job the warranty doesn't mean anything any more.

[nicolaus corelius]

our store used to do that. we had to take turns on the enclosures. also those thin sony's are a ***** to open and close.

[Panama Red]

Nice part about lappy ide hdd's, they can be connected directly with an adapter via usb. No need to fiddle with an enclosure. Lappy sata & 3.5" drives take a few more parts, but still no need for an enclosure. I use one of these.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...20-OTB&cpc=SCH

[Force Flow]

Yep, easiest approach is to pull the drive. The only bootable CDs I really use on a regular basis are for diagnostics, rather than data retrieval.

[nicolaus corelius]

yep we actually do use those ones you linked

[kilgoretrout]

What's easiest is what you're used to. If you are familiar with your livecd of choice and can use it effectively without a lot of searching through documentation, then it's clearly easier and quicker to pop in the cd, boot up and copy the data to an external hard drive. If it takes more time to figure out how to use the livecd than to physically pull the hard drive and put it in a caddy, you're better off doing the latter.