Re: Seeking assistance to preserve memories

Unless the partitions were encrypted, there is a way to get access to
the files. This can access the files without having to alter anything on
the system configuration.

Basically, you boot the computer using a live CD, such as the one from
Ubuntu. Start browsing for files, and you should see some disks that can
be mounted by clicking on them. This will give you access to all files
in all partitions of you internal hard disk(s), one by one.

The harder thing here is to understand what the different partitions
were meant to. By mounting them under a LIVE distro, those are not
mounted at the original mounting point. But if you mount them one by one
and find a file named fstab, under a directory named etc, you can read
this file and see how each partition is mounted. If this is a shared
server containing thousands of photos, as well as a MythTV box, chances
are that there is more than one partition.

Once you know you can mount those partitions, look for files with the
.jpg or .jpeg extension. This will likely give you the location of all
you photos, which is, I understand, the most important part. Once you
find those, copy them on a USB hard disk, twice, not only once, and save
one of those hard disk in an external location, like your office, or a
safety deposit box, or a friend.

Once your pictures are all safe, then you can try resetting either the
root or your husband's password using a method explained previously.

All this can be time-consuming, So I recommend that you hire someone to
do this, or ask for help on the list. I cannot help very much, as I just
arrived in Vancouver for LinuxCon 2011.

JF
---
I am Linux,
And Windows 7 was NOT my idea !.......

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [oclug] Seeking assistance to preserve memories
From: Kimberly Charette <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, August 13, 2011 10:34 pm
To: [email protected]

My spouse was the Linux person of the house, sadly with his passing in
June most
of that knowledge passed with him. All of the systems in the house run
Ubuntu.
 I have no concerns using my personal system or losing data on it but
our server
is s different story. It houses thousands of photographs and given
recent
circumstances those pictures are irreplaceable to me.
This machine was also my husbands Mythbuntu box and it's raided. I know
the
Myth software on this machine was having glitches before June. My
husband being
the eternal procrastinator was going to fix everything eventually. I
also have
no idea what his password is and my account has absolutely no access to
anything.
My father in law tried to fix a few things but I think just made them
worse. 

I would like the system to be operational with Ubuntu, Mythbuntu
optional but
not necessary. I of course have no idea how to accomplish this task and
require
the services of a knowledgeable and reliable Linux person in this
matter. 

Thank you in advance.

Kimberly Charette


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