win partition issue

[JBN]

Hey all

I am fairly new to knoppix and so far I am impressed with speed end everything.

To get right to the point - there is a defect disk drive in my computer, BIOS can detect it only as single master drive.
So, I cant really copy files to another drive even if I could access win partition.

My question is what must I do to be able to access win partition (I need about 400+MB of photoson it).
Error says - could not enter folder mnt/hd1

If I access win partition then I could upload it all to FTP server or something...
Or burn it to CD...

Please, help me.


Edited
I changed read/write permissions, I can access hdd now but nothing seems to be there.
Strange.
In winternals disk commander all of 19GB can be seen there...
hmm.
Any ideas?

[Harry Kuhman]

As you say, you can transfer files to another computer bt FTP; I like to set up an FTP server on another system on my local network and use the Knoquror window that opens when Knoppix starts as an FTP client. There are other ways to transfer files across the local network too.

Other options include saving to a USB flash device (or any UBS removable disk), replacing that dead hard drive with a hard drive with a FAT partition on it, and burning a CD. To burn the CD you'll either need multiple optical drives or enough memory to load Knoppix to ram (with the toram cheat code). As an alternative if you only have one drive you can download and burn a copy of Knoppix STD, a small (50 meg) distro based on Knoppix. Write it as the first session of a multi-session CD and leave the disk open for additional writes. Then you can boot this CD and use it and the writing tool included to write files to the remaining 650 megs (I have done this and it works well).
.

[JBN]

Harry Kuhman,

tnx for your input.

But for now, I cant even access the NTFS files.
I looked around a little and found in /mnt/hd1 that it is locked.

I guess thats why I cant even see files although properties of hd1 say there is over 10GB of data present.

Any suggestions on how to access NTFS files, pls?

[Harry Kuhman]

But for now, I cant even access the NTFS files.
I looked around a little and found in /mnt/hd1 that it is locked.

I guess thats why I cant even see files although properties of hd1 say there is over 10GB of data present.

I'm not at all clear on what you mean by the partition being locked. You will not be able to write to an NTFS partiton (even to delete files), but in general you can read file fine. It sounds like you may have more than one system there (both the talk about FTP transfer as well as perhaps another system that you actually burnt the Knoppix CD on). If so you may wish to boot Knoppix there and see how it behaves on a known good system.

While Knoppix can often open a partition and access files when the all too frequent problem of XP refusing to even boot happens, it can't read data that is no longer there and certainly can't always access every partition no matter how corrupted it is. So it could be that you have the partition so mucked up that Knoppix can't open it. There is a tool that may be able to repair the partition table if that is what has been damaged, but if the file system in the partition itself is scrambled it may be harder to recover the files (although there are some other Linux based live CDs like Helix that might give it a good effort). For now it would be wise to try to determine as much as one can about what happened to the disk. Do you have any insight on the cause of the problem?

[JBN]

I'm not at all clear on what you mean by the partition being locked. You will not be able to write to an NTFS partiton (even to delete files), but in general you can read file fine. It sounds like you may have more than one system there (both the talk about FTP transfer as well as perhaps another system that you actually burnt the Knoppix CD on). If so you may wish to boot Knoppix there and see how it behaves on a known good system.

It is locked, /root/mnt/hd1/ is locked, or so it is displayed...

Well no, I thouhgt I can burn CD under knoppix...

FTP I had in mind is one of servers on the web, not in my local network.

While Knoppix can often open a partition and access files when the all too frequent problem of XP refusing to even boot happens, it can't read data that is no longer there and certainly can't always access every partition no matter how corrupted it is. So it could be that you have the partition so mucked up that Knoppix can't open it. There is a tool that may be able to repair the partition table if that is what has been damaged, but if the file system in the partition itself is scrambled it may be harder to recover the files (although there are some other Linux based live CDs like Helix that might give it a good effort). For now it would be wise to try to determine as much as one can about what happened to the disk. Do you have any insight on the cause of the problem?

Well, partition table is ok now, knoppix itself shows partition info correctly. Partition table was corrupted, I fixed that.

I guess this is one of those sutuations then, where knoppix can not read win$it partition.

Helix?
I will give it a try, thank you!

[Harry Kuhman]

I'm very confused by your going back and editing the first post; I have no idea when the timeline was or what the current nature of the problem is as you see it.

Knoppix can burn files to a CD. But there is an issue - Knoppix is on a CD and you need access to the CD when running Knoppix. So for a system with only one CD drive this presents a problem, although it is not a problem if you can boot from one drive and burn to a different one. Otherwise you can use the toram code to load Knoppix into memory if you have enough memory to hold all of the CD. Otherwise you can use the smaller Knoppix based Knoppix STD that I mentioned and still have 650 megs of the CD left to write to, or even use Knoppix STD and the toram code (since Knoppix STD needs far less RAM) and then put as many blank discs as you wish into the burner (one at a time, hopefully).

As I say. If the data is damaged too bad Knoppix may not be able to read the partition. But I really can follow what happened and what you have done to the system since in trying to recover. You seem to be acting quite swiftly in this, where I would prefer to look carefully and act with deliberation. However, as I said, there are other tools out there that may help if it is determined that Knoppix cannot read or repair the partition. Helix is a forensic Live CD with some recovery tools that may or may not help; whithout understanding what has happened to the disk I can't do much to guide you.

[JBN]

I'm very confused by your going back and editing the first post; I have no idea when the timeline was or what the current nature of the problem is as you see it.

Knoppix can burn files to a CD. But there is an issue - Knoppix is on a CD and you need access to the CD when running Knoppix. So for a system with only one CD drive this presents a problem, although it is not a problem if you can boot from one drive and burn to a different one. Otherwise you can use the toram code to load Knoppix into memory if you have enough memory to hold all of the CD. Otherwise you can use the smaller Knoppix based Knoppix STD that I mentioned and still have 650 megs of the CD left to write to, or even use Knoppix STD and the toram code (since Knoppix STD needs far less RAM) and then put as many blank discs as you wish into the burner (one at a time, hopefully).

As I say. If the data is damaged too bad Knoppix may not be able to read the partition. But I really can follow what happened and what you have done to the system since in trying to recover. You seem to be acting quite swiftly in this, where I would prefer to look carefully and act with deliberation. However, as I said, there are other tools out there that may help if it is determined that Knoppix cannot read or repair the partition. Helix is a forensic Live CD with some recovery tools that may or may not help; whithout understanding what has happened to the disk I can't do much to guide you.

Hey

thank you for your time.

Current situation is this:
disk is readable by sistem (BIOS) but does not boot up. And as luck would have it, it is detected by BIOS only as single/master drive, so I cannot copy files to another dirive.

As for the disk damage, partition table was corrupted, now it is fixed, even win$it CD install recognizes system present on C partition...

I dont understand why knoppix doesnt want to read files on the disk.

I am completely new to knoppix, so I discover things as I go. I guess thats why I appear to go too fast with this...


So, knoppx can burn by itself!
Thats a good thing. It is ok, I have DVD player pluged in as well as DVD&CD/R/W burner. And 1GB of RAM, so...
There are just some 4K MG of photos to burned, so I think this should be no problem...

I am running knoppix as we speak as drive wont boot. Tnx Open Soruce for knoppix!

But, as I say, files are not accessable...

What do you suggest, Harry Khuman?

[OErjan]

hmm, sounds like a, not overly, remote posibility that it could be some issue with master/slave settings on there.
do you have the master on the end of the cable and slave on the second conector?
do you have the disks jumpered rigt? if i where you i would check a second time.
just a sugestion.

[JBN]

hmm, sounds like a, not overly, remote posibility that it could be some issue with master/slave settings on there.
do you have the master on the end of the cable and slave on the second conector?
do you have the disks jumpered rigt? if i where you i would check a second time.
just a sugestion.

Hey,

yep, jumpers are set correctly, slave/master hdds both present.
Hmm.


tnx

[ckamin]

yep, jumpers are set correctly, slave/master hdds both present.
Hmm.

Just a quick note to add another two cents worth. Some systems are sensitive to drive jumper settings. There are many that will NOT accept anything but the "Cable Select" option and will work ONLY with compatable cables. The drives' position on the cable will determine the Master/Slave relationship. Don't know if it is pertinent, since it may appear that the system was working once in it's present configuration. There are also some drives that just do not play well with others. Most newer drives are OK, but some of the older stuff could act squirrely.

Was there anything that you did to cause he problem? Make changes in the system? Add software? Have you tried removing the drive and accessing it in another system? If you "repaired" the partition tables, was it done correctly? Could THAT be your present error in not seeing the files?

Another tool that may be useful is either Windows PE or BartPE. It is a Windows boot disk that allows full access to NTFS file systems. Windows PE is not usually obtainable by ordinary humans, but BartPE can be MADE by anyone with the knowledge and desire to do so. It works about the same. The BartPE is customizable and you can add numerous plug-ins to assist your recovery efforts. It does require the Windows install files to be available in order to create the disk, but it is pretty simple and straight forward. It's sort of a DOS for NTFS based systems. The Install FIles are probably on your broken disk and would be located in the i386 directory. If you have an actual Windows Install disk, you are in clover. You might have to slipstream the latest SP into it if it isn't current.

Good Luck!