Ubuntu debugs Windows

The first thing you'll want to do is create an Ubuntu Live USB, which is nothing more than a flash drive that has a copy of Linux installed on it, which you can use to boot straight into Linux a lot quicker than using a CD. If you really want to get fancy, you can create a persistent Ubuntu flash drive that saves your settings.
The only problem with this method is that not every PC supports booting from a flash drive, and older PCs are not only more likely to have problems, but they are the ones that are less likely to boot from a flash drive—so you’ll want to keep a Live CD around as well.
Tip: You can also put a copy of Windows 7 on a flash drive, which is very helpful for using System Restore to fix an unbootable PC.

Change or Reset Your Password

Perhaps one of the easiest ways to use Linux to fix Windows is when you’re trying to recover a forgotten password—all you have to do is boot it up and run a few commands, and your password will be reset. It’s really as simple as that. Here’s a couple of ways that you can do this, both for Windows and Linux:

The last one isn’t using the Ubuntu Live CD, of course, but the System Rescue CD is a great tool as well, so we figured we’d include it in the list.

Diagnose Windows or Hardware Problems

There’s a number of ways that you can use Ubuntu to diagnose hardware problems, but the first is really obvious once you think about it—just boot off the Live CD, and start running some applications and test out all the hardware from a working Linux environment. If the system works fine in Linux, the problem is probably a Windows, virus, or driver issue.
You can also run a number tools to more closely check the hardware components—for instance, memtest86+ can do some serious testing on your system RAM to make sure that you aren’t having any problems there, or you can use CPU burn to test out your CPU and motherboard.
Diagnose PC Hardware Problems with an Ubuntu Live CD

Clone Your Hard Drive

If you’ve just replaced your hard drive with a new one, or you simply want to create a backup of your whole system, you can use the Ubuntu Live CD to make a clone of your drive, make a drive image, or even transfer that drive image across the network to another computer for safekeeping. Here’s a couple of the ways that we’ve covered:

Of course, you should make sure to read our guide to exactly what files you should backup from you Windows PC, and keep your PC backed up at all times, but in a pinch, it’s very useful to be able to make a clone of your hard drive.

E.P.O.D

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