Installing harddisks

[Cinemarxism]

Okay, I'm not going to bullshit anyone; I don't have a hard time believeing that this question probably has been answered hundreds of times, and that the solution probibly is so simple that any fool should be able to figure it out after an hour of trying. However, I don't. I've been using the knoppix live-cd since my windows crashed, and I need to access my hard drives to be able to move my files before formatting the computer. I've been searching the forums a bit, but this problem, with a solution I guess is pretty obvious to everyone with a tad of experience, I have not managed to find answered in threads.

So here it is: how do I access my hard drives through knoppix? USB-devices are found immediately, the hdd's arent. Do I use a certain program, or a scrips to do this? (As you can see I'm a total noob, this is my first time using anything other than Mac or Windows)

Also, as a side-question, are there any programs for knoppix that can burn data-DVDs? I wonder, because I can't use the DVD-rom since knoppix is running from the CD in there ... Do I have to install knoppix to one of my hdd's to be able to use the CD-rom while using knoppix?

Any help is appreciated, and again, sorry to bother you with problems I'm ashamed of not finding answers to myself.

[Harry Kuhman]

... since my windows crashed, .... USB-devices are found immediately, the hdd's arent......
Normally there are icons for each hard drive partition on the desktop, similar to what you see for your USB devices (but marked with names like hda1 and hda5 for ide type hard drives). If you don't have them then it's very likely that something happened to the partition table in the crash or that the drive itself is no longer working. If it's just a partition table you may be able to recover it easily with Knoppix, see the man pages for gpart and testdisk for details. But be warned that not all windows crashes can be recovered easily (I have 2 hard drives that I still can't get the files back from).

[Cinemarxism]

Sorry, calling what has been happening a "crash" was actually pretty redicilous, just didn't find a suitable word to explain it. Windows havn't really crashed. What happens is that I'm able to use the computer for about 5-10 minutes after startup, then my computer starts freezing in segments that can last from 10 seconds to 5 minutes (and it happens with something like 2 minutes between every freeze when in windows). After something like 30 minutes the computer restarts. So I've been able to mail myself some documents from windows before all hell breaks loose, but I never have time for any "big" actions.

So hdd's can be accessed from Windows.

[Harry Kuhman]

So hdd's can be accessed from Windows.
I've never personally seen a case where the hard disks could be accessed from windows but not Knoppix, but you really are not giving us any information about the system and seem to want us to tease the facts from you. OK. Is this some non standard disk interface, or is it normal IDE? You don't have these disks running in a raid array do you? (A software based raid sysytem rather than a true hardware raid array requires special drivers be loaded in the computer to access the drive, and most manufacturers only release their special drivers for Windows). Have you any insight on what was failing after 15 minutes (after all, it sounds like the computer is OK, if it runs fine under Knoppix)? What is the hardware (motherboard, cpu, memory, any special interface cards)?

[Cinemarxism]

Sorry for the late response, been real busy with exams this week.

There's nothing "funny" with my setup of hardware, there's two SATA HDD's connected directly to the controller on the main board. The mainboard is a VIA K8T Neo, and my prosessor is an AMD 3200+. Memory: unknown crappy 1GB Ram.

I don't exactly know what's failing, but when the computer freezes the usage of CPU is set to 100%, don't understand how, though. The exact same thing happened to me about one year ago, but I had all my files backed up back then. Could it be a software-related problem? Anyways, I recall having a problem finding my second hdd in windows when installing it, I don't remember how that got solved. Never had any problems finding the first hdd, though.

Thanks for all your help so far, and I'm really sorry about not being able to explain the situation better than this. My knowledge is very limited.

[Harry Kuhman]

There's nothing "funny" with my setup of hardware, there's two SATA HDD's connected directly to the controller on the main board. The mainboard is a VIA K8T Neo....
What version Knoppix? For good SATA support I would try using the newest 5.11, I don't know for sure when SATA support for your chip set was included (actually, I don't even know it's in 5.11, but I do expect it is).


Memory: unknown crappy 1GB Ram.
If you think there is a memory issue (and maybe there is if windows crashes minutes after booting. boot the Knoppix CD and type in memtest at the prompt. If there is a memory issue I would resolve it before transfering files, as xtranfering files with bad memory could result in corrupt files.