Once you successfully boot from the drive, select Default Settings (Runs from RAM) from the resulting menu. You'll soon find yourself in a comfortably familiar-looking environment.

But here's one thing you should remember: Linux is actually running in a virtual drive in RAM. Any file you save to the root "drive" will disappear when you reboot. If you want to save a file, save it to the flash drive.

The following are a few things that you can do in PartedMagic.

Recover files: If your friend can't boot the PC, recovering important files off its hard drive is probably the first priority. Click the external-drive icon near the lower-left corner, and then click the Mount button next to the appropriate partition. Find the files and folders you want, and drag and drop them to an external drive (if your flash drive has enough free room, you can use that).

Edit partitions: If the name PartedMagic didn't clue you in, this Linux distribution's main claim to fame is a nondestructive partition tool. Just double-click the Partition Editor icon on the desktop, and up it comes. This will tell you right away if the correct partition is bootable, or even visible. To change a partition's status, right-click it and select Manage Flags.