Copying Between NTFS Drives

[Zeroez]

Hi folks,

I'm (of course) new to Knoppix. I'm trying to figure out how to copy files between two NTFS drives mounted when running the Knoppix Live DVD. Both of the drives were partitioned and formatted under Windows. How can I transfer all the files from one drive to the other???

[Harry Kuhman]

Reading is fine, but don't write to a NTFS drive with Knoppix if you value the partition or the data. Writing to FAT is fine.

[Zeroez]

Ok, well... this brings me to the big question I'm after here: is there any way to copy files between NTFS partitions without using Windows (not interested in Cloning drives or partitions - I just want to copy files directly)?

[jnagyjr]

Hi there, I've a sort of similar problem regarding WinXP Home/WinXP Media Center Edition and my current Knoppix boot disk (from 2003!)

So let me start at the beginning. I started using XPMC a couple of months ago at the insistence of a friend. Didn't particularly care for it, but I didn't roll back because it's a hassle. I deleted a couple of files and somehow ntldr went missing (it was still there, but Windows couldn't find it). So I had to do an install over with WinXP Home edition (friend didn't give me a copy of MC like he promised). Turns out the file permissions for NTFS with XPMC are more precise and controllable in XPMC vs. the very limited XP Home controls. So now I don't have access to some irreplaceable files. I thought that if I could boot into Knoppix and copy the files over to a linux partition to wipe out the NTFS permissions, then copy them back over to the NTFS partition so that I could regain access to the files.

Like I said earlier, my current Knoppix boot disk is OLD and only has ro access to ntfs.

TIA for any help (and I have searched Google)!

[Harry Kuhman]

.... I deleted a couple of files and somehow ntldr went missing (it was still there, but Windows couldn't find it).

Pretty typical of Windows, may not even have been anything you did.

.... So I had to do an install over with WinXP Home edition (friend didn't give me a copy of MC like he promised). Turns out the file permissions for NTFS with XPMC are more precise and controllable in XPMC vs. the very limited XP Home controls.

Media Center is based on XP Pro, not Home, and some file stuff is a little different. Just another way for Microsoft to screw their customers, no surprise here. (Although if it's really the source of the problem, one would expect to see problems with people using external hard drives on multiple XP systems).

.... I thought that if I could boot into Knoppix and copy the files over to a linux partition to wipe out the NTFS permissions, then copy them back over to the NTFS partition so that I could regain access to the files.

Like I said earlier, my current Knoppix boot disk is OLD and only has ro access to ntfs.

So is there a question here? I have looked and looked, but can't see one.

Are you waiting for someone to tell you to download a newer version? Many of us will not do that because we are still not comfortable that writing to NTFS is safe. If you have decided to ignore that and that we must be wrong, then why wait for someone to tell you to do the obvious?

Can you read the files with you Knoppix disc? I'm guessing that you can. but I would have expected you to confirm this if asking for help.

Do you even have available unpartitioned space on that system for a Linux partition? Or plan on adding an empty disk? If so I would suggest making a FAT partition instead, which Knoppix can write to just fine, and your XP home can read and write with no problem. Alternately, you could read the files with Knoppix and transfer across a network to another computer.

[jnagyjr]

Sorry, I thought I had asked when I posted. I wanted to ask for recommendations for using Knoppix to transfer the files in question first to an ext3 fs and then to FAT or back to NTFS. The current copy of Knoppix I have, though, only gives me RO access to NTFS. I was wondering if the current Knoppix distro has read/write capabilities for NTFS so that I could move (instead of just copy) the files over to the ext3 partition, then to FAT.

As for having the space, I have a second drive in the system that's big enough to partition into a sizeable ext3 partition with room leftover for file storage on FAT (I can't even format the drive to FAT32 using XP, what a joke).

Ideally I'd like to return to Linux but I don't want to even deal with installing on an old Dimension 2350.

Again, sorry that I forgot to actually posit my question and for leaving out there the assumption that after reading this thread that I thought that writing to NTFS was considered safe. After what I read before my first post, I truly didn't think that would be an ideal solution, I just didn't take the time to think out an alternate plan to ask about and get feedback on.

Thanks for the help, Harry.

So right now, the question is:

Does Knoppix have rw support for NTFS so I can move the files off the drive, thereby stripping the permissions and freeing up space on that drive (the files in question take up about 3GB of space (mostly anime))?

If not, I'll have to find another, more costly and unsavory, solution.