Laptop broke, can't backup Ubuntu partition

[Haruki-kun]

My Acer unexpectedly died on me. I removed the hard drive and tried to back it up into another computer, but when I plugged it in, the other computer, running Windows, can't see the Ubuntu Partition, where all of my important files are.

I need to recover my files. How can I do this? Do I need a computer running on Linux for that?

Please help me, I'm desperate.

[Stupendoussteve]

If you are using ext3 on the drive, there is a driver available to allow support, either at http://fs-driver.org/ or http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/ - The second one is Open Source but the first one (freeware) works better in my experience.

If you're using another filesystem you will need to boot from a Linux livecd that can write to NTFS, and copy the files to the Windows disk using it. Windows does not recognize Linux filesystems.

[Haruki-kun]

If you are using ext3 on the drive, there is a driver available to allow support, either at http://fs-driver.org/ or http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/ - The second one is Open Source but the first one (freeware) works better in my experience.

If you're using another filesystem you will need to boot from a Linux livecd that can write to NTFS, and copy the files to the Windows disk using it. Windows does not recognize Linux filesystems.

OK, I tried the first one (while downloading a LiveCD in the meantime). I can now see the partition as existant, but Windows says it has no format. It seems to believe the partition is empty. What should I do now?

EDIT: Also, how do I know if a LiveCD can write to NTFS?

[FrankT-Qc]

Why don't you use a live CD to boot your machine, mount your old drive and copy it's content to your good drive ???

have fun

EDIT : Ubuntu LiveCD can write to NTFS