Hard Drive Locked Up

[piq29]

So, the other day my computer locked and I had to shut it down manually. Long story short...whenver I start my computer now it goes to this screen that basically says something got seriously messed up and my computer can't start. I should probably note that I have Windows XP. I downloaded Knoppix onto a Cd and have been booting it from there like is supposed to happen. My idea was that I would be able to delete the file(s) that was corrupting my computer, or at least transfer all my files that I need then completely nuke my system and start from scratch, but I now have a new problem: I can't modify/delete any of my files. Whenever I go to delete a file, Knoppix says it can't do it. I have set hd1 so it is not read-only and can be written on by all users, but that didn't work. Also, I went to sendthisfile.com, but when I go to browse for my files to upload them, Knoppix will not allow me to go down a level from hd1, so I can't access any of my files. If this makes sense to anyone and they want to help me, that would be awesome. If it doesn't make any sense, I will be more than happy to answers questions so I can hopefully find an answer. Thank you so much in advance.

[Harry Kuhman]

NO, not viable with XP. See answer #6 (http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/User:Harry_Kuhman).

[Harry Kuhman]

...or at least transfer all my files that I need then completely nuke my system and start from scratch, ....
That you can do, assumong that you have some non-NTFS device to transfer them too (and that none are 4 gig or larger, which would make then too large for a FAT partition). Again, see answer #6 (http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/User:Harry_Kuhman).

[piq29]

Thanks for your help, Harry. Would you by any chance know of an OS that is bootable from a CD that I can use to delete or modify files?

[Harry Kuhman]

There is a bootable version of Windows called BartPE (Bill Gates would not approve, even though a big use of it is to fix Windows from it's all too common "I've fallen and I can't get up" problem). There are rumors that the new Knoppix 5.0.1 may be able to write to NTFS, but I a long way from trusting that yet.

[rolfhub]

...or at least transfer all my files that I need then completely nuke my system and start from scratch, ....
That you can do, assumong that you have some non-NTFS device to transfer them too (and that none are 4 gig or larger, which would make then too large for a FAT partition). Again, see answer #6 (http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/User:Harry_Kuhman).

Well, either a non-NTFS disk, or he could burn the files to CD/DVD, or copy them to an NFS/Samba share, or upload to any server (big bandwith would come in handy ;-)

Shouldn't be a problem.

[piq29]

Thanks a lot for your help, guys. I ended up sending all of my important files to another computer. For anyone wanting to know how to do this: Open "Home" from the toolbar on the bottom of the screen. In the address bar, where it says /home/knoppix , type smb://Name of the Other Computer and go to a shared folder. So now that I have my files backed-up, I need to delete Windows XP from my computer so I can reinstall it. Do you guys know how to do this? I've been researching for the whole day now, and I'm not any closer than when I started.

[UnderScore]

You want to completely delete the windows stuff?
Boot up knoppix and then open a konsole command line window.
IN that window:
sudo cfdisk /dev/hda

Then use cfdisk to delete the windows partition and then save the new settings by doing "Write" then Quit.
This will allow you to reinstall windows without it detecting the previous installation.

[piq29]

Sweet. I finally got it to work. UnderScore, thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I ended up deleting the partition and comletely reinstalling Windows. Thank you to everybody who helped me. Your help was invaluable.