Whenever sombody has a problem with ther computer not booting, and wanting to reformat, ive read alot of people sugesting using a linux live cd to backup their files to cd.
Can anyone recommend a good live cd that would be easy and useful for that purpose?

unfortunately u gotta be good with command line (bash commands) cause i havent seen any good GUI based backup utility on livecd .... yet .


i wud suggest knoppix or systemrescuecd

Ok thanks, was hoping of somekind of Livecd that boots into a desktop, with some kind of burning software on!

Knoppix will do just what you are looking for. You don't need to ever see or use the command line.

Your NTFS drives will all be readable. You can use K3B to burn a CD/DVD (providing you have a CD drive to boot Knoppix and another drive to burn a CD/DVD with). Or you can copy to a different Windows PC on your home network, or a separate drive you add just for recovery purposes (recomment FAT format, because Linux can safely write FAT, and Windows can understand it, unlike ext3 which Windows does not recognize).

Thanks, ill try that out.