At 11:31 PM 8/6/2008, you wrote: >Dear List, > >Many thanks for all the suggestions! I will see if the Vaio can boot >from a pen drive. Being several years old, I'm not sure. If not, the >suggestion to put the drive in another computer is intriguing. > >Best regards, >-- I have used this technique on Windows and Linux machines for many years (over a decade). This will work unless your file system is encrypted. Even then, I think, as long as you have the encryption key and nnative tools for the OS that mounts it, it will work. With the proliferation of USB and Firewire enclosures these days it has actually gotten easier.. especially with notebook drives! Cheers, Glenn