Recovering Windows data using Linux

If you ever had a Windows box that will not boot up - where the only recovery is reinstalling everything, you could try the Ubuntu or Knoppix Live distros. I tried unsuccessfully to get samba working in Ubuntu - must be me. I also tried booting off a floppy to rescue the W2K laptop to no avail. This W2K laptop is Katherine's. I managed to recover her photos, some mp3s, homework, basically the whole "My Documents" folder.

Here is what worked for recovering the data before reinstalling everything using Knoppix 4.0
1. Boot Knoppix Live from the dead Windows box
2. In Konqueror location bar, type smb://localhost/share
Eg. smb://192.168.1.5/hda1
3. It will prompt for userid/password, just type knoppix/knoppix respectively

In another Windows box, just map the above share with the userid/password
Eg. \\192.168.1.5\hda1\ using the above credentials

The folders and files should be visible and can be copied. This is a handy hint as I spent some time searching for it on the net - I have done it at work a couple of years ago when my drive at work just died, but I could not remember how I did it. Posting it here on my own blog will give me and you a quick link to how to do it! :)