Can't get into my hard drive

[1616e]

I'm totally new at Knoppix and I need help. I have the 6.2 live knoppix CD. The computer boots up fine, I get to the knoppix desktop and I don't see any options to load the HD. I'm trying to copy my files from the HD since Win XP doesn't seem to want to boot due to virus damage. How do I get to the files in my HD???? Anyone out there with any info? REALLY frustrating since I've seen Knoppix versions with HD icons right on the desktop. The version I got just has a fancy wallpaper with LDE on it. I bought this from a Knoppix distributor online and it seems like its just MS Word with an OS.Anyone please help!!!!

[Capricorny]

I got several pages of hits just by doing a forum search with your exact wording.
If you can't get useful information from that, this forum might not be the right one for you.
But someone should write a recipe for this situation. You might ask the CD vendor to contribute a piece on that to the wiki here. And please post the response and the name here if they decline.

The people trying to help out in this forum are mostly just ordinary Knoppix users, with very little time. And no time at all for repeating answers already given dozens of times.

[1616e]

Thanks for that info, I haven't tried searching the forum but I will get on it right now. I haven't really explored the replies. In any case I'll look thanx.

[woodsmoke]

Hi
This may seem kind of strange, but....... there are those who say that I'm just strange anyway! :D

How about turning the system off and then inserting a usb flash drive with maybe a FAT or NTFS file system on it with some files that you are SURE are there. In other words, there are words that you would easily recognize on the files.

When you then run the live cd and if you CAN see the usb flash drive, and then open it....

you "should" see some plain vanilla folders that have the files that you recognize as the files to which I referred above.

This then indicates to you that the PARTICULAR cd that you purchased does, indeed, "see" various file systems.

If you do not, then, AT THE SAME TIME, see the Windblows hard drive then it might indicate that said HD is, indeed, truely unreadable.

If, however, you do not see the USB flash drive then that would indicate, to me at least, that the commercial operation has well...... scre@#$ you.

just a thought, and one of the ways that I've tested various HDs over the past couple of years.

just a thought, of little consequence.

woodsmoke

[OErjan]

uhm, open a console (text prompt) and type

mount
then hit enter

this should list the drive you want (sually sda),
line with listing of the first sata drive looks like this

/dev/sda1 on /media/sda1 type ntfs (ro)
this means I should look in /media/sda1 for the folders of the windows system on this fictive computer.

If no such entry, try

sudo mount -a

repeat the mount alone, still nothing? uhm, ok

then do
sudo fdisk -l
just note it is L not capital i, this should list the disks on your system and their data like below

/dev/sda1 * 1 6000 5000000 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 6001 600000 999999999 83 Linux

this is great now we know that it is seen by system as sda1 and is NTFS filesystem, it can be mounted.


sudo mkdir /media/sda1
sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /media/sda1 -o users,ro


hope this helped some, if not keep asking.

[Capricorny]

Oerjan, I have been a little hesitant to suggest your method as the basic one, but with so many variants of automounting etc, and so much broken so often with new versions, maybe it's just to say "go mount" to all the people with HD access problems. Those basic commands tend to be the only really dependable.

Maybe we should make a new 6.X FAQ and put it there as one of the first questions? Basically, it's just the steps console, fdisk -l and mount
Just one small detail: Often, /media/sda1 (or whatever) is created by the system when the volume is listed by fdisk.
Prepending sudo like you suggest, instead of becoming root permanently is also good practice for beginners, I think.

[rusty]

On the taskbar , the second icon from the left (looks like a manila folder), is the PCMan file manager. Click on that to open it and in the top left pane you might see a list of different sized volumes, one of which would be your drive. If it does not appear there, then it is possible Knoppix is unable to mount or open it, You can try mounting it manually as described above.

I thought I would add this as the use of the file manager is not particularly intuitive to a windows user, and the use of the command line can be daunting at best.

[Capricorny]

I thought I would add this as the use of the file manager is not particularly intuitive to a windows user, and the use of the command line can be daunting at best.

Sure, and the question is, how foolproof is PCMan? I remember some problems reported with such managers. It seems to work well enough with 6.2 for me, so should that be the first thing to try?

I'm not so afraid of pointing newbies to command line tools, if that is a safe way to work. But if PCMan is virtually bulletproof, that's of course a natural first choice.

[ICPUG]

1616e says he has got a virus attacked Win XP.

Presumably this means 1616e is trying to mount an NTFS partition.

If I remember rightly Knoppix uses NTFS-3G to talk to NTFS and NTFS-3G does not co-operate if it finds a truly messed up NTFS partition (corruption - not virus infestation). This could be why the partition is not mounted.

The usual solution is to run chkdsk from Windows - but in this case Windows cannot be booted.

Methinks a Windows recovery disk may be needed.

[Capricorny]

1616e says he has got a virus attacked Win XP.

Presumably this means 1616e is trying to mount an NTFS partition.

If I remember rightly Knoppix uses NTFS-3G to talk to NTFS and NTFS-3G does not co-operate if it finds a truly messed up NTFS partition (corruption - not virus infestation). This could be why the partition is not mounted.

The usual solution is to run chkdsk from Windows - but in this case Windows cannot be booted.

Methinks a Windows recovery disk may be needed.

That may well turn out to be the case, but I don't think anything can be concluded with any certainty from what 1616e wrote. In earlier Knoppix versions, you could often often click on disk volume icons on the desktop to mount and explore them, and he/she expected to do that with 6.2. Which is not possible - but maybe PCMan could do the job in a similar manner.

Personally, I would take the fully manual mounting route if there is any suspicion of corruption, but maybe there is little practical difference in this case.

When you mention chkdsk, would it be possible to run it on the disk volume from a virtual machine running Windows under Linux?

[Harry Kuhman]

When you mention chkdsk, would it be possible to run it on the disk volume from a virtual machine running Windows under Linux?
It should not be. The virtual machine is the virtual machine, and logically isolated from the rest of the real physical computer that the hard disk would be attached to.

[Capricorny]

When you mention chkdsk, would it be possible to run it on the disk volume from a virtual machine running Windows under Linux?
It should not be. The virtual machine is the virtual machine, and logically isolated from the rest of the real physical computer that the hard disk would be attached to.
That depends on the mounting possibilities. With enough privileges, we may run Unix fsck on externally mounted file systems, and if chkdsk works in a similar manner, it could be possible to use it without that constituting a security hole.

[1616e]

I followed woodsmoke's USB test and the 6.2 disk saw the usb immediately. whew, big relief. I thought I got a non functional disk. Then I took OERjan's instructions and it all worked. Using fdisk it listed the sda1 and that it is NTFS it even gave the disk capacity and number of heads on the HD. When I tried to mount it it read that there is no NTFS signature. In detail it read:
NTFS signature missing
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1' : Invalid Argument
The device '/dev/sda1' doesn't have a valid NTFS.

Then it advises that maybe wrong device was selected. But on fdisk it shows that it sees sda.
I'll try the command again using just /sda. Will post more. Thanks guys you're the best. I couldn't have gotten this far without you. Hope the /sda works. Will post more.

[Capricorny]

I followed woodsmoke's USB test and the 6.2 disk saw the usb immediately. whew, big relief. I thought I got a non functional disk. Then I took OERjan's instructions and it all worked. Using fdisk it listed the sda1 and that it is NTFS it even gave the disk capacity and number of heads on the HD. When I tried to mount it it read that there is no NTFS signature. In detail it read:
NTFS signature missing
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1' : Invalid Argument
The device '/dev/sda1' doesn't have a valid NTFS.

Then it advises that maybe wrong device was selected. But on fdisk it shows that it sees sda.
I'll try the command again using just /sda. Will post more. Thanks guys you're the best. I couldn't have gotten this far without you. Hope the /sda works. Will post more.

Good work! But I doubt trying /dev/sda as mount will help you much.
You might try around with different mount options, like sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /media/sda1 -o ro
The message you got may indicate that this file system is seriously messed up. I'm a bit unsure if trying to mount it rw would help - that's usually considered a bit dangerous.
And, unfortunately, I don't think we have good Linux tools for NTFS recovery.

I would have tried to take the disk out, mount it in an external USB disk cabinet, and try to access it from another Windows machine. Perhaps running chkdsk on it from that.

As this is a common problem, it's fine if others reading this have some tips or tricks.

[krishna.murphy]

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30520 I don't know if you'll see that URL, but I justed posted a message on another Hardware question, regarding Hiren's Boot CD - if Knoppix isn't doing what you need, give it a try.

Krishna



I followed woodsmoke's USB test and the 6.2 disk saw the usb immediately. whew, big relief. I thought I got a non functional disk. Then I took OERjan's instructions and it all worked. Using fdisk it listed the sda1 and that it is NTFS it even gave the disk capacity and number of heads on the HD. When I tried to mount it it read that there is no NTFS signature. In detail it read:
NTFS signature missing
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1' : Invalid Argument
The device '/dev/sda1' doesn't have a valid NTFS.

Then it advises that maybe wrong device was selected. But on fdisk it shows that it sees sda.
I'll try the command again using just /sda. Will post more. Thanks guys you're the best. I couldn't have gotten this far without you. Hope the /sda works. Will post more.

Good work! But I doubt trying /dev/sda as mount will help you much.
You might try around with different mount options, like sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /media/sda1 -o ro
The message you got may indicate that this file system is seriously messed up. I'm a bit unsure if trying to mount it rw would help - that's usually considered a bit dangerous.
And, unfortunately, I don't think we have good Linux tools for NTFS recovery.

I would have tried to take the disk out, mount it in an external USB disk cabinet, and try to access it from another Windows machine. Perhaps running chkdsk on it from that.

As this is a common problem, it's fine if others reading this have some tips or tricks.