Making an External USB Drive writable

[brewster66]

I have a Sony laptop and it does not boot into windows and XP recovery did not fix it (chkdsk: / R) In addition, the “SpinRite� disk utility says that the drive is in danger of failing and to backup data before attempting a fix. Well it came to mind to boot from Knoppix, I had heard that you can recover data in this manner.

So I booted boot from a Knoppix 4.02 DVD and can see and open windows docs and folders just fine on the Windows partitions (2) that are showing up on the Linux desktop. I can even see the thumbnail photos on JPG file icons which tells me the data is good.

I have an external USB drive that mounts fine on the Linux desktop. I formatted one partition as Linux ext 2 and the other is NTFS. Both partitions are free and clear of an important data so I can format these in any way that would enable the writing of the disk. I right clicked on both partitions and gave them all “read write" for everything, but I still can’t drag a file to the Linux EXT2 or the NTFS partition.

Any suggestions?

[Harry Kuhman]

You can't write to an NTFS partition safely with Linux.

I've never used ext2. Knoppix should write to it, but this is just theory. By default Knoppix opens all partitions as read only. You should be able to change this with the mount command or by right clicking on the desktop partition icon and using the actions ... submenu. If problems persist with the ext2 partition I would consider deleting it and making a FAT partition. Not only can Knoppix write to it, the partition can also be read by Windows after you get the system rebuilt so you can get the files back (a rather useful part of making a backup). Remember, Knoppix will not be able to put files from an ext2 partition back onto an NTFS partition after the XP system is rebuilt.

[brewster66]

...consider deleting it and making a FAT partition. Not only can Knoppix write to it, the partition can also be read by Windows after you get the system rebuilt so you can get the files back (a rather useful part of making a backup). Remember, Knoppix will not be able to put files from an ext2 partition back onto an NTFS partition after the XP system is rebuilt.
Harry, when you say "FAT" do you mean "FAT 32" or the old style "Fat"

[Harry Kuhman]

Harry, when you say "FAT" do you mean "FAT 32" or the old style "Fat"
When I use the term FAT as opposed to FAT32 or FAT16 or even FAT12 I mean the group of FAT partitions collectively. Knoppix (and Linux in general) can write to all common FAT formats without problems. But if you write to a Linux partition you can't read it back with XP for recovery without special software, and you can't write to an XP NTFS partition with Knoppix. So some form of FAT is the way to go for this. Anything from a FAT32 partition on a large disk to a small FAT partition on a floppy. I have seen some arguments in favor of making several smaller FAT partitions less than 32 or 64 gigs each rather one large FAT partition because of a corruption bug. I can't say if this is accurate or not, but I have seen the corruption so it may be correct.

[brewster66]

Harry: I formatted a 20 GB disk in FAT32 but had problems writing to it. I decided to attach an external DVD Burner and the data wrote to it like a charm from the Windows drive. In the end, you could say that Knoppix "saved the day", about 8 GB of data for this guy.

I put the disks in my Windows machine and all data were good and clean from word docs to PPT and photos.

As a sidebar, I find Knoppix 4.02 DVD to be the most stable yet and very fast considering it's a DVD and "Live"

[Harry Kuhman]

Glad to hear you got things resolved. I don't understand what your writting to a FAT partition problems may have been, assuming that you made the partition read/write with the right click technique or the mount command. Try working with Knoppix a bit after your recovery; in the panic of recovering data from a crashed system is not the best time to learn new tricks.

[Laurent]

Hi there,

I was looking for a solution to a similar problem (i think) as the title of this thread. So if anyone reading this could help/advise on what to do I would be very grateful.

Quick rundown of my situation.
I have a PC at home which is one of those OEM ones, ie when we bought it we were never given an install or repair CD. The PC runs Windows XP Home edition (the OEM version from what i learnt recently), 516mb of ram and an athlon XP 1700 processor (not a 100% sure about that).
Fast forward 3 years, and the PC started bugging badly. To the point where it totally crapped out and i cant get back into XP to retrieve data before reseting it.
So a friend linked me to KNOPPIX. Grabbed the most recent version this weekend, tested it and yes i can boot frmo the CD and see all the files stlil on the computer.
However I cant burn data from KNOPPIX as i've only got one CD drive and not enough ram to do the boot option where KNOPPIX transfers to the ram (the knoppix ram command i think?).
Yesterday my partner managed to borrow a portable USB Hardrive from her work. now the thing is the USB hd works fine with a Mac (my other computer) but i have no way of knowing if it works on a PC or Linux (got a feeling it's not gonna work on a PC).

So essentially what i would like to know is:
- Are there any ways to get KNOPPIX to recognise this USB HD so that i can transfer data from the computer onto it (putting data back onto windows after isnt an issue, as i can use the mac to store the data till windows is fixed - we have the pc and mac networked so we could chuck data back on it once its all fixed).
- If so how? My knowledge of LInux is non existent... tho i've been told before it's similar to mac in its inner workings... thus i assumed the USB hd may be compatible
- Or are there ways to format (or do something to) the drive from KNOPPIX (or alternatively from the Mac) that will allow me to get KNOPPIX to recognise it and let me copy data onto it?

I tried to play around with it yesterday but couldnt see anything, and frankly a lot of the commands in KNOPPIX looked quite 'alien' to me. I tried having the USB HD plugged in before boot, plugged in after boot. tried playing around with some command relating to USB but didnt seem to do anything.
I dont have the computer at hand as im at work.

However any advice/instructions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Laurent

EDIT - additionally if no one can help with this query, any advice on how to get KNOPPIX to work without having the CD in the drive so i can use the drive to burn the data safely would also help.
thanks

[Harry Kuhman]

Yesterday my partner managed to borrow a portable USB Hardrive from her work. now the thing is the USB hd works fine with a Mac (my other computer) but i have no way of knowing if it works on a PC or Linux (got a feeling it's not gonna work on a PC).

So essentially what i would like to know is:
- Are there any ways to get KNOPPIX to recognise this USB HD
Most of the time Knoppix will recognize an external hard drive and put partition icons on the desktop when booting, assuming that the drive is connected to the computer at boot time. But that is with a USB drive partitioned for the PC.

Do you know what type of partitions are on this external drive? Do you know if it's even partitioned at all? Does it have useful (perhaps important) data on it, or are you free to completely repartition and format the drive as you wish? I don't know much about the many MAC OSs, but this information may help someone who does help you.

[Laurent]

Yesterday my partner managed to borrow a portable USB Hardrive from her work. now the thing is the USB hd works fine with a Mac (my other computer) but i have no way of knowing if it works on a PC or Linux (got a feeling it's not gonna work on a PC).

So essentially what i would like to know is:
- Are there any ways to get KNOPPIX to recognise this USB HD
Most of the time Knoppix will recognize an external hard drive and put partition icons on the desktop when booting, assuming that the drive is connected to the computer at boot time. But that is with a USB drive partitioned for the PC.

Do you know what type of partitions are on this external drive? Do you know if it's even partitioned at all? Does it have useful (perhaps important) data on it, or are you free to completely repartition and format the drive as you wish? I don't know much about the many MAC OSs, but this information may help someone who does help you.

hi again harry,

yeah this is essentially my worry. the USB HD i've got access to isnt ours. it's borrowed from my partner's workplace. The IT guy there, who works only on Macs, said it was fine for mac, probably wouldnt work on PCs and might work on linux (which really isnt much help).
I plugged it into my Mac first to check it, and appeared as a desktop icon, with 70 odd gigs of free space.
There is data on there i cannot lose, it belongs to the guys who my partner works with. So i've actually copied the data to my mac last night, in case anything happened.

so as for your answers:
- Most of the time Knoppix will recognize an external hard drive and put partition icons on the desktop when booting, assuming that the drive is connected to the computer at boot time. But that is with a USB drive partitioned for the PC.
- well in this case it didnt, i plugged it in, booted the comp into KNOPPIX and couldnt see anything. This led me to assume the drive wasnt formatted for Linux or PC...

- Do you know what type of partitions are on this external drive?
- No, tho it seems there aren't any. Just 75gigs of space, 3.5 of which is used.

- Do you know if it's even partitioned at all?
- Again not 100% sure, but it doesnt seem to be.

- Does it have useful (perhaps important) data on it, or are you free to completely repartition and format the drive as you wish?
- Again yes it does, data i shouldnt be erasing. but i've backed up this data on my mac for the time being. however i've got a feeling you, or someone else, may say the USB HD needs reformatting before i can use it.

So i guess my question would be can it be formatted to work with KNOPPIX so i can pick up the data from the PC and still be used with a Mac (ie when i plug it back into a mac to retrieve the data it will not need to be reformatted again)...

many thanks

Laurent

[Harry Kuhman]

- Do you know what type of partitions are on this external drive?
- No, tho it seems there aren't any. Just 75gigs of space, 3.5 of which is used.

- Do you know if it's even partitioned at all?
- Again not 100% sure, but it doesnt seem to be.

I'm not a MAC person by any means. But I think when you talk with some you'll find that the drive has some partition type on it. I just don't know how to talk you through finding what it is.


If you can resolve your Knoppix networking issue you could put the drive on your MAc and save files to it across the network (or on the MACs internal drive if there is space). But I wouldn't even know where to start finding out what the current partitions were on a MAC disk. I was hoping that maybe it was a blank empty disk (or one that you could erase) and that you could partition it with some FAT partitions and go from there.

[Laurent]

- Do you know what type of partitions are on this external drive?
- No, tho it seems there aren't any. Just 75gigs of space, 3.5 of which is used.

- Do you know if it's even partitioned at all?
- Again not 100% sure, but it doesnt seem to be.

I'm not a MAC person by any means. But I think when you talk with some you'll find that the drive has some partition type on it. I just don't know how to talk you through finding what it is.


If you can resolve your Knoppix networking issue you could put the drive on your MAc and save files to it across the network (or on the MACs internal drive if there is space). But I wouldn't even know where to start finding out what the current partitions were on a MAC disk. I was hoping that maybe it was a blank empty disk (or one that you could erase) and that you could partition it with some FAT partitions and go from there.

:(

i had a feeling this might be the case. thanks for your help and advice tho. i've managed to find some instructions on how to look for portable drives in KNOPPIX if they dont appear right away, so will give those a go i guess.
after that i think im down to my last solution of slaving the hd to another PC and retrieving the data this way.

many thanks tho.

Laurent