MakeUseOf » recover

Back Up Your Entire Hard Drive With Redo Backup & Recovery

Justin Pot — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:01:33 +0000

Easily make a copy of your entire hard drive . Don’t just back up your data: back up all of your software, your settings and everything else by cloning your entire hard drive. Redo Backup makes cloning your system easy, but also gives you access to file recovery and a variety of other tools. You can even browse the web while everything’s happening.

We’ve shown you the magic of live CDs more than once; we even wrote a handy live CD manual. So it should come as no surprise that we’ve already shown you Clonezilla, a live CD for cloning the entirety of your hard drive. This tool is great for cloning drives, but does not come with a GUI and includes a lot of cryptic language.

Enter Redo Backup, a user-friendly live CD that makes cloning or restoring your entire drive simple. Tell the program where you’d like your cloned drive to be and you’re pretty much set.

Backing Up, Backing Up…

Boot up Redo and you’ll see two simple buttons:

If backing up or restoring is what you have in mind, these are the buttons to press. Once you’ve established the drive you’d like to copy, you can pick a destination:

You can save your clone to another hard drive on your computer, another computer on your network or a USB drive; it’s up to you. You can restore your backup at any time by using the CD again.

But Wait, There’s More…

Redo is primarily a backup tool, but it can do more than that. Click the gear button at the bottom-right and you’ll find a small menu. Browsing reveals these tools:

You can use the Disk Utility to check on the health of your drives. The file recovery tool can help you recover deleted files, while the partition editor lets you add, remove or change the size of our partitions. The usage analyzer is a great way to visually examine what’s taking up space on your hard drive.

All these tools combine to make Redo Backup an amazing tool for working with filesystems. The disk’s accessories help a little more:

The web browser is the coolest thing, giving you access to the Internet while your computer backs up. A file manager, image viewer, terminal and text editor round things out.

Need more software? Don’t worry; you’ve got full access to the Ubuntu repositories. Check out the “Administration” menu to find Synaptic, or use the Terminal, and install the tools you need.

Download Redo Backup

Ready to get started with Redo? Download it now. Once you have the ISO file you’ll need to burn it to disk. Linux users can simply right-click the file to find the option to burn the ISO to disk. Windows users will need Infrarecorder or a similar tool.

Conclusion

If we taught you well, you will know the importance of backing up. This tool makes backing up the entirety of your hard drive simple, and for that I’m grateful.

How do you like this tool? Feel free to leave praises or complaints in the comments below, along with any questions. I’ll be around.

How To Use Find My iPhone To Get Your Stolen iPhone Back

James Bruce — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 17:30:25 +0000

Long story short: my wife had her iPhone stolen when she misplaced it at work the other day. I was instantly able to log into her iCloud account and follow the device all the way back to a residential address, saving her the trouble of searching around the warehouse. We locked the phone and sent a polite message asking the ‘culprits’ to return it for a (very small) reward, but failing that we had their address to cross-reference on the employee database.

The next day we saw the phone travelling back to her workplace in the early morning, and when she arrived she found the phone had been anonymously returned with no reward asked for.

This story has a happy ending of course, but Apple’s free Find My iPhone service is also able to deal with the less happy outcomes in a way that minimizes your risk for greater losses. Let’s look into the app and see how you can ‘MakeUseOf’ it when your phone is lost or stolen.

So What is Find My iPhone?

Find My iPhone has been a part of Apple’s Mobile.Me service for a while now, and is now upgraded and included in the standard, free iCloud account. You can read all about iCloud here. The most recent update means that Mac computers can also be tracked. Here’s my wife’s iPhone, in the process of being stolen (this isn’t their home address, this was on the way).

I must have it! How do I enable It?

1. Make sure you’ve signed up and enabled iCloud on your device. From Settings > iCloud you can sign up for, or if you’ve already got an account connected, scroll down and ensure Find My iPhone is enabled (by default it isn’t enabled).

2. Location service must also be enabled – from Settings > Location Services > On

3. Scroll down on the same screen to Find my iPhone at the bottom of the list and click through to enable it specifically there.

To set it up on your Mac, you need to have the latest OSX, iTunes and iCloud specific updates installed. There should then be a new iCloud control panel icon in your preferences screen.

What Can I do When My Phone Is Stolen:

Open up the Find my iPhone app from either any other iOS device (you need to download it from the app store first), or log on to icloud.com from a computer.

You should see a list of devices registered to your account, and location discovery will begin. Click on the device once it’s been located correctly.

You should now see it on a map, but clicking on the device, then the small blue “i” will open up the menu of actions you can take. There are 3 choices:

Play Sound or Send Message: This allows you to send a quick “this message is lost/stolen” type message as well as sound an alarm which works even if the phone is in silent mode. Note, this is also a great way to find your phone at home!
Remote Lock: This places the device into a locked mode exactly as if you had setup a regular lock screen before it was stolen. You choose the 4 digit code now, so make sure you don’t forget it.
Remote Wipe: This is final and more drastic option – it will initiate a low level format of all your data, leaving it like a fresh iPhone straight from the factory. Be very careful when using this, as you will no longer be able to track, lock, or message this device if you use this option.

Your first move should be to lock the device and prevent any calls from being made. This isn’t going to stop anyone from reformatting the phone, but it will stop most thieves from getting at your data for now or making random expensive calls.

Second, follow the device via the GPS signal. If you’re the daring type, you could try chasing it down. It is probably best not to try anything crazy until you know it’s been stolen though, at which point calling the police with a residential address is definitely an option.

Next, send a message offering a reward and contact details.

At this point, you’re going to have to gamble. If it was indeed stolen, and the thief knows what they’re doing then your personal data is definitely at risk. Use remote wipe as a last option only if you’re confident you won’t get the device back.

Lastly, be sure to phone your mobile provider and lock out the SIM. This will prevent them making calls/texts and prevent any further expenses, but it’s not going to get your phone back.

It goes without saying that you should also call the police and get an incident or report number – you’ll need this to claim on insurance. Most contents insurance usually comes with the option to cover devices while they’re out of the house, so if you’re lucky then you can get a new phone.

A Solution for Android Users

Not wishing to exclude those inclined to the other mobile OS – Prey is a free service able to track up to 3 devices, and even has the ability to take photos of the thief using the laptop webcam or front camera. Sadly, Find My iPhone doesn’t let you do this, and I’m unable to find a similar app that does. The Prey page states they’re currently working on an iPhone version, but it’s been saying that for years. Looks like Android users have a one-up on us here!

I do recommend you enable some kind of service now as a precaution as you’ll never be able to do it when you’ll really need it. Find My iPhone is free, and if it saves you the $400 on a new phone, it’s more than worth it. Do you have any experience using Find My iPhone to get your phone back, or even a computer? Let us know in the comments, I’d love to hear how it worked out for you.

How To Recover Deleted Files Using Windows 7′s Restore Previous Versions Tool

Yaara Lancet — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:31:39 +0000

We all know the importance of backups. If we’ve it heard once, we’ve heard it a million times. Always have backups, always save after every change, always use Dropbox (or something similar) to save previous versions – and everything will be alright. But accidents happen even to the most safety-conscious people. I, personally, saved things by mistake when I actually didn’t want to save changes. What then? What if you purposefully delete a file permanently only to realize it was actually not the file you meant to delete?

Fear not, Windows 7 has the answer. This guide will show you how to restore previous versions and recover deleted files using the Restore Previous Versions tool.

System Protection & Restore Points

In order for this method to work, you will have to enable System Protection. System Protection creates regular restore points every week, and also before major events such as driver or program installations. If System Protection is disabled, restore points will not be created.

To check if it’s enabled, click Start, right-click My Computer and choose Properties. On the left side, click on System Protection. From here, you can choose your drive (you’ll have to enable it by drive) and click on Configure.

Here you can enable System Protection for all system settings and files, only for files and folders, or disable it entirely. You can also set how much disk space will be used to create restore points. The more space you allocate for this the more restore points you’ll have, but your disk space will be used up, so use it wisely.

As I mentioned earlier, restore points are created automatically, but if you want to create one manually, you can do so at any time. In the System Protection tab, click on “Create”, name your restore point and create it. It might take a few minutes, but actually not as long as you’d expect.

Restoring Previous Versions

To restore a previous version of a file, right-click the file in question and go to the Previous Versions tab. Here you should find previous versions of your file. If you don’t see any, there might not have been a restore point since you created it, or your last modification was long ago and the restore point has already been deleted.

Before you restore a previous version, click open to see if this is truly the version you want. You can also copy the file to somewhere on your hard drive just in case. If you choose to restore, this will overwrite your existing version of the file.

If you also use Windows Backup, you will also be able to restore from backup at this point. You will have to have the media you used for backup available for that.

Restore Deleted Files

So this is the reason we all gathered here – let’s restore some deleted files.

To do this, you would have to access the previous versions of the folder in which your deleted file used to be. Go to that folder, right-click it and go to the Previous Versions tab.

From here, you can choose the version of the folder that you want and double click it. This will actually open a previous version of this folder, complete with all the files that were in it at the time.

From this folder you can simply copy or drag files to wherever you want. Just grab your deleted files and copy them back to where they’re supposed to go, and you’re done!

When I tried to do this, I got this security message:

But it’s OK, my own files weren’t really harmful and everything worked just fine!

Conclusion

The Windows 7 restore previous versions tool is actually extremely useful. I usually use Dropbox for this, but this is something I can use for every file and folder on my hard drive, and it only takes a few clicks to do so. The only downside is that you can’t really schedule restore points to happen whenever you want, so this is not really a solution that can replace backups. But for your everyday accidental deletion or change, it can be a real life saver.

What do you use to restore older versions and recover deleted files? Share in the comments! Also don’t forget to read Tina’s Backup & Restore manual!

Image credit: Shutterstock

Boot Multiple Live CDs From One USB Disk With YUMI [Windows]

Justin Pot — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 19:31:55 +0000

Put multiple bootable tools onto one USB drive, then pick which one you want to boot when your computer starts up. Whether you want to try out various Linux environments at once or put together the ultimate Windows repair kit, YUMI (Your Universal Multiboot Installer) can help you build a bootable disk with a menu. It even supports Windows Vista and 7 installation disks.

We’ve written about more than one live CD here at MakeUseOf. I myself recently wrote a manual called 50 Uses for Live CDs. These amazing tools can accomplish a lot, from giving you access to a computer that’s otherwise completely busted to more advanced features like scanning a computer for viruses. Many bootable tools fill only one purpose, however, leaving many a techie’s desk littered with recently burned tools. Don’t be like that; use YUMI to combine all of your tools onto one USB disk.

We’ve written about tools that allow you to boot live environments from USB. UNetBootIn and LinuxLive are just two examples. These tools however cannot install multiple environments to one disk. For that, you’re going to need YUMI.

Using This Tool

To get started, you’ll first need to download YUMI. The program comes as a portable Windows program (I’ll write about a similar Linux tool soon). If you’ve used UNetBootIn before, the interface will feel familiar when you start YUMI up:

Scroll through the list to pick a live environment. If you have the ISO already, you can browse for it. Note that the file name will have to match exactly what YUMI states the file name should be in order for you to find it. Not every ISO file will show up in the browser.

If you don’t have the file, you can quickly find the download by clicking the “Download The ISO” link. This will open your browser to start the download and you’ll have to point YUMI to the downloaded file, once it’s done. At this point you can simply click install and the process of installing your live environment to USB will begin.

Once this process is done you’ll be asked if your want to repeat the process. You can keep adding more and more environments until you run out of space on your disk.

When you boot from this CD you’ll be presented with a menu:

Just browse to the environment you want, hit enter and you’ll be on your way.

Many Supported Tools

There are many supported distributions and environments for this disk. Some highlights include:

Windows Vista/7 installation disks
Ubuntu and it’s many versions.
Fedora
Clonezilla
GParted

There’s a heck of a lot more. Check the YUMI download page for a complete list.

One thing to keep in mind though. Having Windows and Ubuntu on the same USB drive with this tool causes problems. Be sure to read the download page’s documentation carefully if you want to do this. There’s a tip on the page.

Conclusion

In many ways this is the Holy Grail of bootable tool creators. A collection of ISOs can become a single USB disk ready to boot just about everything. Combine this with a good sized thumb drive, or even an external hard drive, and you can make yourself a really powerful tools.

Thanks to Josh Peterson for pointing YUMI out to me! What tools did you add to your disk? Share in the comments below.

How To Recover An Unsaved MS Word 2010 Document In Seconds

Saikat Basu — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:31:27 +0000

The general consensus is that most mishaps on our working with computers occur because of carelessness and an itchy trigger happy finger. It’s a bitter lesson that’s taught to us while working on documents like MS Word, MS Excel, or any other like MS PowerPoint. The lesson says – save and save early.

Even with the right MS Office etiquette in place, documents disappear from the screen before you can save them. The notorious Windows system crash or your house power on the blink could cause you to lose your work before you can click on save. Lot of times we also tend to close an unsaved document after taking a printout. So, how can you recover that unsaved MS Office document and restore your work (and also save yourself from a hair-tearing apoplectic attack)?

We turn to a little Microsoft Office 2010 feature that lets us recover document drafts in a second.

Bringing Back The Draft

Here’s my open MS Word document that will be taken through some deliberate steps to demonstrate the ‘life-saving’ feature that’s present in MS Word, MS Excel, and MS PowerPoint (MS Office 2010 only).

After closing the Word file unwittingly, open up a new MS Word document again. Go to File – Info – Manage Versions. Click on the little dropdown and select Recover Unsaved Documents. In Excel 2010 click on Recover Unsaved Workbooks or Recover Unsaved Presentations if you are in PowerPoint 2010.

MS Word opens the location where a copy of the draft resides.

Now, it’s just a matter of selecting the draft, opening it up as a fresh MS Word document and saving it properly using the Save As button on the business bar at the top of the document; something which we ‘forgot ‘to do the last time around. Copies of unsaved documents are kept for four days and then they are automatically deleted.

While opening the unsaved document, you can also make use of the Open& Repair feature for troubleshooting documents that might have got corrupted or damaged.

You can browse to the following file locations to open the file manually, depending on your operating system:

Windows 7/Windows Vista: C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\

Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\ \Application Data\Microsoft\

Saving of drafts takes place automatically in all applications within MS Office. The Auto Recover option kicks in if the document has been open for some period of time. You can easily change the Auto recover interval by going to File – Options – Save. The default is 10 minutes as indicated under – Save AutoRecover Information. I prefer setting it to a more frequent 3 – 5 minutes. Remember that AutoRecover may be a lifesaver, but it is not a substitute for the good habit of regularly saving your file while you are working on it.

AutoRecover is a feature to rely on and more often than not it will help save you from all that can go wrong while working on a long document. Microsoft Office 2010 makes it slightly easier to get back an unsaved document than the earlier versions of Office. If you are still on MS Office 2007, check out how you can use AutoRecover to come to your rescue. We have a substantial lineup of other MS Word tips for you. Were you aware of this one?

How To Recover Lost Files In Dropbox

Tina Sieber — Thu, 26 May 2011 23:31:29 +0000

Dropbox is an online file storing, sync, and backup solution with features that make its competition look pale in comparison. The most ingenious thing about Dropbox is that you don’t have to remember to sync your files or make a backup. As long as you ‘drop’ your files into the Dropbox folder, they are automatically synced and hence backed up to the Dropbox server, provided you have an active Internet connection.

But what happens if you accidentally delete a file? Will it be gone forever once the changes are synced to Dropbox? Yes, the file will disappear from your Dropbox folder. However, it won’t be entirely gone just yet. So is there a way to recover lost files from Dropbox after it was deleted? This being the super smart Dropbox, there certainly is!

What Dropbox does behind the scenes is to keep a record of every saved change in your Dropbox folder for 30 days. This means that not only can you restore files that were removed from your Dropbox folder during the past 30 days, you can also go back to previous versions of documents. This recover and restore feature makes Dropbox a life saver and in this article I will show you how to use it.

Recovering Files Online

The way it works is straightforward. When you are logged into Dropbox online, you will notice a ‘Show deleted files‘ button in every folder.

Clicking this button will reveal all files that were deleted during the past 30 days. When you hover over a file with the mouse cursor, you will see a little arrow in the far right. By clicking the arrow of a deleted file, you can choose to undelete, permanently delete, or view previous versions of the file.

When you hover over any other file and click the arrow, you can also access a list of previous versions, through which you can preview and restore any of the backed up versions.

Recovering Files From Dropbox Installation On Windows

Likewise, you can open the above list of previous file versions via the Dropbox folder on your computer. The respective application is available for Windows, Linux, Mac, and Mobile.

Generally, the restore feature only works if the files you’re working on were uploaded to the Dropbox server. For example if you move a file to your Dropbox folder and work on it while you’re offline, you will neither be able to restore the file if you delete it, nor will you be able to go back to a previous version. The reason is that the original file and/or its intermediate versions were never uploaded to the Dropbox server. Once a file hits the server however, a second copy of this file version will be available for 30 days after the initial file was first changed.

This said, there is another way to restore files from your computer in case the above method fails. Dropbox also keeps a hidden cache of files in a backup storage within the Dropbox settings. In Windows Vista and Windows 7 open a new Windows Explorer window or folder. Copy and paste the following line to the location bar at the top of the folder and press Enter:

%HOMEPATH%\Dropbox\.dropbox.cache

This will open your Dropbox cache within the Application Data folder. To restore a file, drag it out of this cache folder into another folder or onto your desktop.

If you think 30 days are not enough, you should consider upgrading to Dropbox Pro and get the Pack-Rat add-on, which will save a history of your files forever.

Dropbox is an insanely useful tool just the way it is. But it gets even better when applying some tricks. Did you become interested in learning more about Dropbox? Check out the following MakeUseOf articles:

The above is only a small selection. Click here to view a chronological list of all our articles on Dropbox.

How do you make sure you never lose a file? Did you know about the Dropbox restore feature?

How To Create The Ultimate Boot CD For Windows

Justin Pot — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 19:31:47 +0000

Linux users love to brag about their awesome live CDs, talking about how every Windows user should have an Ubuntu live CD. They make a good point: these CDs allow you to access your computer even when you’re having serious system errors.

Some Windows users, however, aren’t entirely comfortable with learning to use Linux to solve Windows problems. Happily for them, it’s perfectly possible to make the ultimate boot CD for Windows using free tools. You’re going to need a legal copy of Windows XP to do so, of course, but assuming you have that handy all you need to do is follow the simple steps below.

This ultimate Windows boot CD will include everything you need to rescue a busted system, from data recovery software to antivirus scanners. Best of all, the included tools are almost all free to use.

Step 1: Find Or Buy A Windows XP CD

The first thing you’re going to need is a Windows XP CD. Ideally this CD will be a Service Pack 2 disk, though some Service Pack 1 disks might work. Anything older than that won’t work. It’s also worth noting that some OEM CDs, which are what usually come with new computers, won’t work. The idea here is to have a retail disk, typically purchased separately from your computer.

Please don’t discuss anything related to pirating Windows XP in the comments below; it will be removed.

Once you’ve got your CD, insert it into your drive, ignoring any auto-prompts. Working from an ISO? Extract all files, using 7-Zip or any other program that can unarchive ISO files.

Step 2: Install UBCD4Win

This step is simple; just download UBCD4WIN and install it. The download is pretty big, so expect to wait a while if your connection is slow. The installation process is pretty standard; just follow the prompts.

UBCD4WIN is a piece of software capable of taking the data from a Windows XP CD and creating a Live environment with it. Drivers and a lot of software can easily be added to the mix, as you’ll see in the next step.

Note that this software is Windows only, so Linux and Mac users cannot use it without access to a Windows machine. Sorry!

Step 3: Set Up Your CD

Now we get to the fun part. Start up UBCD4WIN and you’ll see the main interface:

Point the “Source” path to your Windows installation files. If you’re using a CD, this is simply your CD drive. If you extracted files from an ISO, this is the folder where the files are now.

Use “Custom” if you have any additional files you want to add to the CD. Read more about that here but be warned: it’s kind of geeky.

Be sure to check out the “Plugins” button at the bottom of the window. Here you can configure which additional applications will and will not be included on the CD.

These files range from antivirus scanners to disk repair tools, so make sure you go through this list. Want to know what you could include? Here’s a complete list.

Once you’re ready to go, feel free to click “Build“. This will start the process, and ask you to agree with Window’s EULA:

Assuming there are no errors with the process, your ISO will be created. Feel free to try it out using Virtualbox to make sure everything worked properly.

Step 4: Burn Your ISO

Want to burn your ISO to a disk? Check out this list of free alternatives to Nero to find the best tool for the job. I highly recommmend CDBurnerXP.

Step 5: Boot Your ISO

Only one step left: booting from your ultimate boot CD. Insert the CD into your computer, then restart the system. Now you need to launch the boot options. How to do this varies depending on your computer; on a Dell, for example, you press F8. Don’t panic; there are typically on-screen instructions during startup, and you can always consult your manual if you get stuck.

Once you get the CD to boot you’re in! You’ll have a bootable Windows environment featuring a plethora of free tools:

Did this process work for you? Can you think of uses for this amazing toolset? Leave your comments below, and feel free to point us towards better tools for the job.

4 Reasons Every Windows User Should Have An Ubuntu Live CD

Justin Pot — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:31:54 +0000

Think Ubuntu is useless? Think again. Ubuntu can be an extremely effective tool for repairing and working on computers, even if you consider yourself a Windows purist. This is because Ubuntu is capable of loading completely from a Ubuntu Live CD, giving you access to your computer in ways Windows can’t – or when Windows is completely broken.

For this reason, I suggest every Windows user keeps a copy of Ubuntu on hand, even if they never intend to switch from Windows. Happily, Ubuntu is completely free to aquire. You can download Ubuntu and burn it yourself, but if that sounds like too much work you can request Ubuntu send you a Ubuntu Live CD for free.

That’s right: you’ll get a CD in the mail, completely free of charge. There’s seriously no reason to not look into this, so let’s see some of the uses Ubuntu has for those who never intend to install it.

Recover Data From Unbootable System

When your Windows system won’t start – not even in safe mode – it’s easy to feel helpless. If you’ve got an Ubuntu CD handy you don’t need to feel that way. Just boot from your CD and you can access every file on your hard drive. This can give you a chance to get some work done, if you want, or just to back up all of your files before re-installing Windows or attempting to repair the Windows installation.

If you want more information on this particular use for an Ubuntu Live CD, including information on how to burn one, check out Varun’s excellent article How To Back Up Data On Your Computer That Won’t Boot. There’s a lot of great information there!

Run Memtest

If your computer crashes from time to time it’s easy to suspect your problem is software related. It might not be – frequently the cause of such bugginess is a problem with your RAM chip. If you suspect this might be the case with your system, and you’ve got an Ubuntu CD on hand, you’re in luck: the Ubuntu CD comes with a memtest!

Just start the CD, being sure to hit “Enter” when you see the keyboard icon on the screen. Then select “memtest” from the list of options to begin testing your RAM. If there’s something physically wrong with your RAM you’ll find out and know that it’s time to shop for a replacement!

Find out more about Memtest courtesy of our good friend Varun, and his excellent article about Memtest,

Find Out About Your Hard Drive

Another reason for an occasionally crashing or sometimes slow Windows computer is a failing hard drive, or one that is too slow. Ubuntu comes with a couple of really good tools for accessing the health of your hard drive.

The first is Disk Utility, which you’ll find under “System,” then “Administration.” This app will tell you if any disk connected to your system has physical damage, as well as giving you access to SMART DATA and a couple of other key statistics that can inform you about the life of your drive.

Another nifty tool is Disk Usage Analyzer, which you’ll find under “Applications” followed by “Accessories.” This tool can scan any hard drive and graphically display what’s taking up space on your drive. You’d be amazed how many times I’ve discovered people have filled their drive by accidently copying and pasting their entire music folder. Use this tool to find where any such superfluous files may be and then use the File Manager to delete them!

Edit Partitions

The Ubuntu CD comes with Gparted, which is a pretty amazing drive partitioning program. If you’re looking to re-size your Windows partition, or turn some empty space into a secondary partition, this is the tool you’re looking for. That Ubuntu runs as a Live CD is particularly useful here, because you cannot edit your primary partition from within Windows.

Find Gparted under “System” followed by “Administration.” If you’re familar with Partition Magic or similar software you should feel right at home; if not, I’ll be writing all about Gparted in the weeks to come!

Conclusion

Do you need the Ubuntu CD to do these things? No; I’m certain our commenters will point out a wide variety of alternatives. My only point is that if you have an Ubuntu Live CD on hand you can quickly do all these things. Seeing as Ubuntu is completely free I figure it’s good to have the option.

What do you think? Is it handy to have a Ubuntu CD around even if you never intend to install it? Do you have any stories of data saved or computer diagnosed because of the tools that come with Ubuntu? Have a seat, grab yourself a drink and let us know what you think in the comments below!

3 Ways To Recover Serial Numbers In Windows

Tina Sieber — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:31:22 +0000

Having to re-install your Windows operating system is nothing unheard of. Unfortunately, it has to be done at regular intervals. Before you start however, not only make sure all your data is backed up, but also that you have all the serial numbers of programs you would like to reinstall.

Should you find that you have lost the keys for some of your software, chances are you can recover the serial numbers. You could either search the Windows registry, which stores serial numbers, or use a handy tool that will look up all available numbers for you.

Jalapeno Keyfinder

Supported software (selected):

Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista
Microsoft Office XP, 2003, 2007
Microsoft ActiveSync 4.2
Microsoft Money 12.0 and 14.0
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and 2005
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Basic 2005 Express, Web Developer 2005 Express, C# 2005 Express, Basic 2003
Microsoft Works 7.0 and 8.0
Acdsee 6 through 9
Ahead Nero 7
Corel DRAW 12 and 13
Macromedia Dreamweaver 4 through 8
Norton System Works
The Sims

Jalapeno Keyfinder is the perfect tool to recover Microsoft serial numbers or registration keys besides other Windows software. It’s a small utility, super fast, and easy to use. As soon as you launch it, it will find compatible software installed on your PC and decrypt the keys for you.

If you go to the developer’s homepage, you’ll find that the latest version 2.0 is no longer free. Version 1.06, however, is available for free through Major Geeks. A full list of supported software can be seen here.

ProduKey

Supported software:

Microsoft Windows Vista and 7
Microsoft Office 2003, 2007
Microsoft Exchange Server
Microsoft SQL

When you unzip and run this tool your antivirus program may display an alert. This is a false positive alarm. You can read more about it here.

Obviously, I removed my Product ID and Key information from the above screenshot.

To view the product key information of software installed on another computer or within another operating system, you can use several command line options as outlined on ProduKey’s download page. /remoteall for example will enumerate all computers on your local network.

For more options that may help you recover your serial numbers, have a look at Karl’s posts User LicenseCrawler To Recover Your Lost Software Serial Numbers and Recover Your Lost XP, Vista & Office Serial Numbers. Simon wrote an article on How To Recover Your Lost Video Game Keys (Windows).

Windows Registry

If the tools above fail to retrieve your product key, you may still be able to find it in your registry. Go to > Start > Run, type > regedit and click > OK. Click > [Ctrl] + [F] to launch the search window. Then search the registry for the software in question. Keep hitting > F3 for the next matching entry, until the serial numbers shows up in the data column.

It may be difficult to spot the correct value. Additionally, many programs decrypt the keys stored in the registry, for example Windows itself. In that case it will be impossible to retrieve the numbers.

In case you’re desperately seeking to recover a serial number that you lost and can’t retrieve with the tools above because you can no longer access that computer, try Find Serial Number. To be used in emergencies only!

Did you have luck finding your keys?

Image credits: srbichara

6 Free Password Recovery Tools for Windows

Tina Sieber — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 01:30:44 +0000

Have you forgotten a password or username that you have stored in an application a long time ago? If you need this very information for another application, browser or for use on a different computer; you have to find a way to either reset or change it first.

However, it’s much easier to simply recover the forgotten password, along with the username and other stored information. This article shows how you can recover passwords from you browser, instant messenger, eMail, and Word or Excel documents. It goes without saying that I have deleted my own user name and password information from the screenshots seen below. The password recovery tool, however, did work flawlessly.

A known issue of many of the following password recovery tools is that antivirus programs detect them as a Trojan/Virus. This is a false alert.

Disclaimer: The following tools are not meant to be used in any illegal way. You shall not recover or crack passwords from applications, profiles, or accounts that are not yours.

Browser

PasswordFox

This tool effortlessly recovers all user names and passwords stored in Firefox. PasswordFox reveals passwords stored in the default profile. Clicking on the folder icon, you can select any user profile from which passwords shall be extracted. The results can be stored in a text file.

If you need to recover the Firefox master password, try FireMaster.

ChromePass

ChromePass is a password recovery tool that reveals usernames and passwords stored in Chrome, Google’s internet browser.

IE PassView

This utility shows usernames and passwords stored by Internet Explorer. Using this tool, you can also delete passwords you no longer need.

Instant Messengers

MessenPass

MessenPass revovers passwords from the following Instant Messengers: AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Digsby, GAIM/Pidgin, Google Talk, Messenger, ICQ, Miranda, MSN Messenger, MySpace IM, PaltalkScene, Trillian Windows Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger.It works only for passwords stored under the currently logged in local computer user.

Do you know of a free tool or way to recover a forgotten Skype password?

eMail

Mail PassView

Mail PassView can recover passwords stored in the following applications: Eudora, Gmail (if stored in Gmail Notifier, Google Desktop, or Google Talk), Group Mail Free, Hotmail / MSN mail (if stored in a MSN / Windows / Live Messenger program), IncrediMail, Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Netscape, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Yahoo! Mail (if saved in a Yahoo! Messenger application).

Word / Excel

Free Word / Excel Password

This password recovery tools can crack Word or Excel passwords. It requires Microsoft .NET Framework in order to be installed successfully. There are two possible approaches: dictionary recovery or brute force recovery. The latter is limited to eight characters, in other words, longer passwords can not be cracked.The utility comes with a text file containing the standard English dictionary, which is stored in the program directory. You can use any other dictionary text file.

Simon introduced Ophcrack – A Password Hack Tool to Crack Almost Any Windows Password. Guy has previously revealed How To View Passwords Hidden Behind Asterisk Characters. Saikat showed you How To Recover Lost Gmail Password With A SMS Message.

And in case you have forgotten your Windows Administrator password, there are several ways to recover or reset it. Karl shows you how to Recover Your Windows XP Administrator Password With The Installation Disk, T.J. found 3 Ways to Reset A Forgotten Windows Administrator Password, and Jack has 5 Tips to Reset The Administrator Password in Windows XP. Finally, Varun explains How To Reset Any Linux Password.

Do you need to recover passwords from applications not covered in this or former MakeUseOf articles? Please leave a request in the comments and we may reveal the possible solutions in a future article.

Image credits: CDWaldi