Trouble copying files to USB flash drive

[tdeshler]

My laptop (Gateway M210) decided to crap out on me yesterday. From one day to the next, it wouldn't boot. I wasn't able to repair, so I suspect a bad hard drive. I installed Knoppix 3.9 to a CD and managed to boot to that ok (first time in Linux for me). I've got the web and email thru the CD-booted Knoppix, so I think I've done that step correctly.

I'm trying to retrieve my documents from the hard drive. I successfully copied a bunch of files and folders to my flash drive, then went back for another batch. Somehow in that second try I generated some unreadable incoherent files on the flash drive. When I tried to copy additional files (all jpg), either as individual files or folders, to the flash drive, I get an message that the folder can't be created. I've changed the permissions on the flash drive icon on the desktop to allow read-write to everybody (although this wasn't necessary when I successfully copied my first batch). I've also tried a different flash drive, and all three of my USB ports. Between each attempt I've rebooted. At this point, I'm at a loss on what to try next. I'm ready to nuke the hard drive, but I don't want to lose alot of the family photos on the hard drive. Help!

Tad

[Harry Kuhman]

It can be important in Linux to unmount the flash drive before unplugging it (or, shut down Knoppix before removing the flash drive, which will also unmount it). My first guess was that this caused your problem the second time but not the first. But if that is the case it doesn't seem to explain why other flash drives will not work for you either.

[OErjan]

yes unmounting or reboot (harder than tu rightclick unmount and wait for a few min imho) is ESSENTIAL!
as the drive is bad it can actually be that the fies are corrupt to start with.
If you have two computers I would use winscp, or similar, to transfer files from the knoppix coputer to the windows one.
go to the penguin menu and start sshd first
then check your IP adress.
open a consle and type sudo ifconfig hit enter (the ip is likely somethig like 192.168.0.3 or so)
now download and install winscp, open a session to that ip and download the files you want.
In a while i will go to my neighbour and give more precise winscp instructions.
I am to help him go wireless and might as well use my network and try winscp.

[OErjan]

in the knoppix machine
set Password for user knoppix

passwd knoppix

you will NOT see anythng when you type the password, it is normal.
start sshd (penguin menu)

Windows machine.
start winscp, oly three feilds need to be filled in.
hostname =ipnumber
username=knoppix
password (which you just set on the knoppxmachine). now you could likely download the files as easy as that.

still if the files are bad ... not much that can be done.

[tdeshler]

Ok, winSCP seems to be working for me, but I can't seem to make the final step. I don't know why I didn't think of this route earlier. It makes so much more sense than physically transferring files via media.

Anyway, I have a wireless network here with two computers. I have winSCP installed and it is now connected to the machine running knoppix. I can see the directories on the knoppix machine from the windows machine, but I can't dive into the hard drive on the knoppix machine. From the knoppix machine, I would normally click thru the hda2 icon on the desktop to access the files, but when I try that from the windows machine, I just pull up a little 463 bit file - there is no further progress possible (i.e., no subfolders etc).

Is there another path to the knoppix machine hard drive? I poked around at various levels from the windows machine, but didn't see any way in.

Thanks for your help so far...I'm learning alot and really starting to like linux.

Tad

[Harry Kuhman]

....Anyway, I have a wireless network here with two computers. ......Is there another path...

I generally don't even get involved in Knoppix networking problems when someone is trying to use wireless, since wireless is so poorly supported in Knoppix. But since you seem to have the wireless network working and just need to transfer files, here is what I would suggest (I do this myself whenever I need to recover files from a Windows system): Install and run an FTP server on another computer somewhere on the network. It can be a Windows or Linux system (or even a MAC). There are many good free FTP servers for Windows. Go to the Knoppix system and use Konquror as an FTP client to transfer the file that you want to the Windows system by FTP. You'll find that FTP transfers are much faster than Windows networking transfers, so this is the best way to transfer large amounts of information.

[OErjan]

winscp uses SFTP (encrypted ftp) it is fairly fast and stable.
i have no idea what is going on here, you should be able to access it under /mnt/hda2/, it is the better route, as the desktop icon is just a shortcut.

[tdeshler]

Thanks again to you both for the help. I did successfully install an FTP server on the windows machine, then used konqueror on the knoppix machine to connect to the windows machine. However, when I tried to drag files from the hard drive on the knoppix to the ftp window, I got the same error message as I was getting when using the flash drive.

That's the bad news. The good news, is that I have now successfully used WinSCP to move the files. The mnt\hda2 path was the key. I am not familiar the linux convention for naming folders, so I couldn't find it before.

Maybe I should chuck this whole windows thing!

Tad

[OErjan]

use knoppix on the machine with broken hdd, or get a new drive and install Debian to it.
Reason for Debian is that Knoppix is CD/DVD only offspring of Debian, it "can" be installed but many things can break (in knoppix, rarely in the computer)

[dtherio]

Hello,

I have a similar problem. I have downloaded and installed WinSCP as recommended in this thread, have set the password for the knoppix user and started the ssd daemon. WinSCP attempts to connect, but then it gives me an error that the destination server has not responded for 15 seconds.

From the machine running knoppix I can see my windows machine as well as one of my network drives (and log into the network drive), however the next issue I have is that the directories I need to copy off the machine are owned by another user and I am not allowed to change the owner or permissions as I get the error message telling me the drive has been mounted as read only.

I have chosen the option to change the drive to read/write and at times when viewing the properties it does indicate this, but when logged into the root terminal and trying to change the ownership or permissions I get that same error telling me it can't be done as the drive is read only!

Any ideas?

Basically I need to copy files from a machine that experienced a ram failure (have replaced the bad ram) and the files are owned by the 'mail' user. I can mount a samba share on my network FROM the knoppix machine but am unable to drag the files over to that volume as I do not have the permissions to do so and I keep getting the message that the drive is read only when I try to change permissions or owner.

Thanks for any suggestions. This is a major problem for me right now (not a knoppix fault of course) and I need to do my best to recover the files and get the server back up!

Thanks

Dale