HDD Recovery Issue

[Relic28]

Greets,

My hard drive running windows XP crashed about a week ago with a corrupt registry error preventing me from being able to start the OS. I am trying to gain access to the protected administrator account to back up several files that I didn't have anywhere else. I was unable to achieve this using my vista and other xp pc by taking ownership. I remembered I had an old version of Knoppix (v3.6) and booted it up on my XP laptop. I was able to access the protected files no problem but could NOT copy them. I've checked both hard drive partitions made them read and writable and under devices un-checked read only. Re-mounted them both and still no go :-( . Is it because they are both NTFS? I've hooked up a USB flash drive that was fat32 and attempted to copy over the files with the same results. I am not that familiar with Knoppix and am confused to what I am doing wrong.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated!

[Harry Kuhman]

... I am trying to gain access to the protected administrator account to back up several files .....I was able to access the protected files no problem but could NOT copy them. I've checked both hard drive partitions made them read and writable and under devices un-checked read only. .... Is it because they are both NTFS?....
I'm not at all clear what you mean by "protected" files. If you have some form of encryption enabled then you may not be able to recover these files, and you would likely be very upset if the encryption that you were using to protect files was easily bypassed by Knoppix, particularly if someone stole your computer and accessed your "protected" data with Knoppix.

If the files are not encrypted, then you should be able to get to them with Knoppix, at least if your attempts to write to NTFS didn't do further damage. Just why you were trying to write to NTFS isn't clear, sounds to me like you would still just have another copy on the bad disk (if it worked at all), but maybe you were trying to use an external NTSF partitioned drive.

My suggestion would be to try any of the following:

1) Boot knoppix on the failed system. On another computer boot windows and install an FTP server (there are many free and trial version ones on the web). Connect both computers by a local network and transfer the files that you want by FTP, using Konquror under Knoppix as an FTP client.

2) Plug a FAT formatted flash drive into the dead system. Boot Knoppix. Find the desktop icon of the FAT partitioned flash drive and use the right click menu to make it writeable (exact choices vary slightly depending on Knoppix version). If you can't figure out how to make the drive writeable from the GUI, use the mount command from a shell, see man mount for details; that works just as well. Open the now writable flash drive and drag and drop the files that you want to save to it.

c) Pull the hard drive out of the dead system and install it in another computer as a second drive. Move the files with Windows, no Knoppix needed.

IV) Don't have a second computer or a FAT formatted drive? Get another hard disk for you computer. Reinstall Windows (install XP is you were using Vista). Once the install is up and working, install your old drive as a second drive (pay attention to the master/slave settings if using IDE rather tham SATA). You should be able to access the second drive and move desired files to the new drive.

[Relic28]

I'm not at all clear what you mean by "protected" files. If you have some form of encryption enabled then you may not be able to recover these files, and you would likely be very upset if the encryption that you were using to protect files was easily bypassed by Knoppix, particularly if someone stole your computer and accessed your "protected" data with Knoppix.

Sorry I wasn't more clear, by protected I mean just the basic windows xp. I have one account which is an administrator one with a password nothing special. The files are of personal nature reports, music, etc stuff I sadly did not back-up.

What I did was remove the HDD which is SATA connected it to my hard drive dock and connect that WITH Knoppix on my laptop. Both the laptop and SATA drive are recognized and as explained before I gave it read and write access and don't understand why it does NOT let me copy.


2) Plug a FAT formatted flash drive into the dead system. Boot Knoppix. Find the desktop icon of the FAT partitioned flash drive and use the right click menu to make it writeable (exact choices vary slightly depending on Knoppix version). If you can't figure out how to make the drive writeable from the GUI, use the mount command from a shell, see man mount for details; that works just as well. Open the now writable flash drive and drag and drop the files that you want to save to it.

Attempted this as well with the same results, gave it writeable permission and when I would move the files I wanted from the drive it wouldn't allow it. And I was thoroughly confused. Maybe I was doing something wrong I'll double check and do it again.


c) Pull the hard drive out of the dead system and install it in another computer as a second drive. Move the files with Windows, no Knoppix needed.

Already attempted this on a vista and xp machine tried to take ownership of the files but was unsuccessful kept denying me access, and I'm unsure of what I was doing wrong.

I'm just lost I'll give everything another try and see if I didn't miss something. Thanks

[hal8000]

This has to be a permission problem.

With the drive in the computer,load linux CD, right click the drive icon. change status to mount read/write and insert your usb pen drive into knoppix and grant that read/write access.

Post the output of

mount

this should tell you what partitions are mounted and the mount options.

Only time, I've seen something like this was someone trying to recover onto a Freecom USB hard drive which was formatted
with NTFS. Knoppix would not allow write access. Solution was to make the USB drive FAT32, problem solved, but this may not
be your problem

[Relic28]

Solution was to make the USB drive FAT32, problem solved.

Got it, I am not sure what I did wrong before when I was attempting to copy the files from an NTFS to the FAT32 flash drive but just gave it another try and it works like a charm. Sadly I have around 20gb of info to transfer so looks like I'll be busy. Thanks for all the assistance, lets hope no other problems occur!

[Harry Kuhman]

...What I did was remove the HDD which is SATA connected it to my hard drive dock and connect that WITH Knoppix on my laptop. Both the laptop and SATA drive are recognized and as explained before I gave it read and write access and don't understand why it does NOT let me copy.

Your copy of Knoppix can not safely write to a NTFS partition. If you did manage to write to the laptop partituon you might be here posting about how to recover the files from the now corrupted disk on that too, and it could well be that there is no recovery from that.

Sounds like the problem is "resolved", glad that you were able to get the flash drive working. I'm not clear on why moving the drive didn't work, but such are the wonders of Microsoft.

The FTP approach that I gave previously is the way that I prefer to go, particularly when the data is more than will fit on one or two passes of the flash drive. A good learning experience too in setting up and using a FTP server. If you still have a lot to transfer you might consider putting the drive back in the desktop, running Knoppix there, and transferring the rest by FTP.