Using Live medium - wanting to access private data folder

[fkasmani]

Hello, I have LinuxMint 8 installed in my HDD and by mistake I ended up loading the WinXP setup boot disk on my PC. Now I cannot boot from my Linux Mint HDD as it gives some error (guess the GRUB is messed up).

I downloaded Linux Mint 12 (BTW the feel is GREAT) and made a Live USB from which i've booted my PC and can see and access my Linux Mint installation. However, I can't access the contents of my main folder in which I have some data to backup (my aim is that once I've backed up my data, I try to upgrade my Linux Mint 8 to 12) it just shows 2 files:

• Access-Your-Private-Data.desktop
  README.txt

If (as per what the readme says) I ecryptfs-mount-private from the command prompt, I'm told, "ERROR: Encrypted private directory is not setup properly"
If I double click on the Access-Your-Private-Data.desktop nothing happens, only that I can now set the permissions, but it doesn't do any good.

Any help on this would be really appreciated.

[remoulder]

Download, burn and boot the supergrubdisk and use this to boot into/repair your existing installation then copy the data from there.

[fkasmani]

Download, burn and boot the supergrubdisk and use this to boot into/repair your existing installation then copy the data from there.

Thanks.

I managed to get Rescatux 0.29 and booted my PC with it. Went through the steps of repairing GRUB, only to end up with an error message like, "grub could not be repaired. some error occurred."
I tried the filesystem options (fsck) which completed successfully, and tried to boot my PC from the Linux Mint HDD but no luck. Still says "bootmgr is missing, press CTRL-ALT-DEL".

Any idea why it's giving an error when repairing grub using supergrubdisk?

[gn2]

If you can boot Windows, maybe try installing and using EasyBCD to boot your Linux installation.

[fkasmani]

If you can boot Windows, maybe try installing and using EasyBCD to boot your Linux installation.

Upon loading EasyBSD, I'm getting the message as per the attached snapshot. If I select Yes, it wants me to select a file from my PC (which I have no idea of). If I select No, I get the EasyBCD interface and I went through the different tabs, but there wasn't anything I could select. I even went to the "Add new entry" option but can't select Linux from there.

[gn2]

Sorry, I can't help with that, all I can do is point you to this website, it is the best resource I know of for researching and resolving booting issues.

[fkasmani]

I made a Rescatux Bootable USB, set the BIOS to boot from it and connected my WinXP drive and set it in the BIOS to be the 2nd boot drive and the Linux Mint to be the 3rd boot drive.
So I now booted the PC with Rescatux and then again went through the GRUB restore process and IT WORKED.

I'm back again on my Linux Mint HDD. Thanks so much to everyone for your help.