I cannot see Windows hard drive on Knoppix desktop
I'm new to Knoppix and I've been trying this for a couple of days but I cannot get around it. I tried to look for the answers in this forum but I cannot seem to find it - maybe I am not searching better, maybe there's a solution already posted, but please someone help me.
I have a 5-year old Sony VAIO laptop (PCG-FX300), and one day it stopped running while on sleep mode. Each time I tried to boot it, it said that they could not find NTLDR file or NTOSKRNL file, or "Operating System Not Found". I thought that all the files would still be in the hard disk, so I am trying to recover the files, but all I had was System Recovery CD that came with the laptop, which would erase my C partition. One day my friend told me that I could run Knoppix from CD and that way I may be able to backup most of the data in the disk, and that's how I started this.
On the first day, I could not boot Knoppix from CD completely despite several attempt. This morning, I tried again, and at the second attempt today, it finally fully booted. I see Knoppix desktop. But, I am missing my hard drive from the desktop. I see Knoppix CD icon at the top, floppy icon the second, "Hard Disk [sda1]" the third, Knoppix info icon the fourth, and the trash can at the bottom, and that's it. In the "Hard Disk [sda1]", there's nothing related to my hard drive. I think it's just Knoppix. I tried to mount my hard drive, but I do not know what I am doing - I mounted from Konsole:
mount /dev/hdc
but I didn't think I mounted Windows hard drive. It was mounted on /media/hdc, but I did not see my hard drive. I don't know what I am doing. I also tried:
ls /dev
and tried to see hardwares, but I did not find anything listed in there that makes me guess that would be the hard disk.
Please help me! I need to recover my files from Windows hard disk, so I can end misery with this laptop... :cry:
Re: I cannot see Windows hard drive on Knoppix desktop
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimpshrine
....mount /dev/hdc
but I didn't think I mounted Windows hard drive. It was mounted on /media/hdc, but I did not see my hard drive.
First, understand that Knoppix can't fix all windows problems. If windows screws up one of it's own partitions so bad that it or Linux can't read it, then it is not Knoppix's fault that the information can not be read. That said, Knoppix can often read data that windows cannot on windows own file systems. But that you are not seeing desktop icons for the partitions makes me suspect that there is something very wrong with the drive.
Next, you need to underderstand the difference between a drive and a partition. In general, you don't mount a drive, you mount a partition on a drive. Even if the drive only has one partition, you mount the partition, not the drive. Normally the first IDE hard drive is hda. hdc would be the thrid IDE device, often an optical drive but sometimes a hard drive. Since a hard drive can have 4 physical partitions, the partitions on hdc, if it is a partitioned hard drive, would be named hdc1, hdc2 hdc3 and hdc4. If there is an "extended partition" on the hard drive you would not mount the extended partition, you would mount the "logical drives" contained in the extended partition. For drive hdc these are named hdc5, hdc6, hdc7 and so on, and there is no hdc4. In most windows systems you either just have hdc1 or you have hdc1 and an extended partition that contains hdc5, hdc6 and so on, and there usually is no hdc2 or hdc3 (unless you have multiple OS's on the disk).
If you can't mount hdc1 and you really think there is a physical partition on the hard disk that you want to mount, the partition table might be mucked up (happens in windows a lot more than it ever should). There is a utility in Linux called gpart that will try to guess the partition table for you based on what it finds on the hard drive, see man gpart for details.
Re: I cannot see Windows hard drive on Knoppix desktop
[quote="Harry Kuhman"]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimpshrine
....mount /dev/hdc
If you can't mount hdc1 and you really think there is a physical partition on the hard disk that you want to mount, the partition table might be mucked up (happens in windows a lot more than it ever should). There is a utility in Linux called gpart that will try to guess the partition table for you based on what it finds on the hard drive, see
man gpart for details.
Thank you for your prompt reply. I will try finding the partition by using the utility first. I had only one hard drive that was partitioned to C: and D: - and I think they are still there though Windows cannot start - I will try look for the partitions and try mounting them if the utility can find them.
Thanks again.
I think I found the partition, but I cannot mount
Thanks to your help, I used gpart and searched for the partition I was looking for. I think I found my Windows C: drive and D: drive (for some strange reasons, it was not partitioned and shown altogether). When I asked "gpart /dev/sda" it said:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Begin scan...
Possible partition (DOS FAT), size (28607mb), offset (0mb)
*Warning: short read near sector (58604931), 64512 bites instead of 66048. Skipping...
End scan.
Checking partitions...
Partition (DOS or Windows 95 with 32 bit FAT, LBA): primary
Ok.
Guessed primary partition table:
Primary partition (1)
type: 012(0x0C)(DOS or Windows 95 with 32 bit FAT, LBA)
size: 28697mb #s(58588992) s(63-58589054)
chs: (0/1/1)-(1023/254/63)d (0/1/1)-(3646/254/63)r
Primary partition (2)
type: 000(0x00)(unused)
size: 0mb #s(0) s(0-0)
chs: (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)d (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)r
Primary partition (3)
type: 000(0x00)(unused)
size: 0mb #s(0) s(0-0)
chs: (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)d (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)r
Primary partition (4)
type: 000(0x00)(unused)
size: 0mb #s(0) s(0-0)
chs: (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)d (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)r
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
so, after this, I tried to mount the drive, however it said:
mount: can't find /dev/sda in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
I also tried searching for the partition with /dev/hda (including 1, 2, 3, 4) or /dev/hdc (including 1, 5, 6), but non of them seemed to be not existing or not Windows partition.
I am stuck again. It's like the partition is there but it's not there. I think I am almost there but lost. I don't know. :cry: Can you give me any suggestions?
Thanks.