Basic help recovering files off bad hard drive

[Forester]

... I found the difference - my usb-drive is ext3-formatted.

Ah ha ! That would make a difference.

But ... the line in /etc/fstab has users so the user knoppix can mount the drive without using sudo. No ?

So it comes down to the formatting. When you create your ext3 file system you've just the top level directory and the lost+found directory, both owned by root so only root can create files in there. It's a cat: one way of killing it is:

 sudo chown knoppix:knoppix /media/sdd2

and the user knoppix can now create files and folders on the USB drive just as he can in any other directory the user owns. And you only need to do that once.

I guess Ansky926 probably has (and probably should have for rescue) a USB stick with a vfat partition so he shouldn't need root at all and shouldn't need to change permissions or ownerships and stuff but you never know.

[Werner P. Schulz]

But ... the line in /etc/fstab has users so the user knoppix can mount the drive without using sudo. No ?

Yes and No!

If I attach the usb-drive, KNOPPIX (6.4.4) creates the entry in /etc/fstab and mounts the partition automatic. No need to click on an icon in PCManFM or writing "mount /media/sdd2" in the terminal. But then user knoppix can umount and remount the partition.

Greetings Werner * http://www.wp-schulz.de/knoppix/summary.html
Own Rescue-CD with Knoppix (Knoppix V6.4.4 remaster)

[Forester]

Yes and No!

I can agree with that bit.

With me, neither df or /etc/mtab show the USB partition being mounted (automatically). That's consistent with the noauto in the line added to /etc/fstab. When I start pcmanfm I've got two panes. The left hand one has a list of 'icons' with names line knoppix, Desktop, Applications, cloop, loop0, STORE N GO (that the USB's volume label), var, usr, home, root (those are the labels of partitions on my hard drive), dm-1, dm-2, ,,, (lvm volumes on my hard drive), knoppixwork, knoppixdata, knoppixboot (the partitions on my Knoppix USB and yes, two of those are ext3).

If I click on the STORE N GO, the right hand pane shows the folders and files in the USB stick and now df and /etc/mtab show the USB partition as mounted. I think the entries in /etc/ftab allows pcmanfm to mount partitions on-demand.

You didn't click on any icon. So what do you call the pictures in the list in the left hand pane ?

[Werner P. Schulz]

... now I've done a deeper look to my testing results from yesterday. I found in my remastered Knoppix version in PCmanFM-menu at 'Preferences/ Volume Management' settings, which are not the default setting.

But I can't remenber at what time I changed the settings and why. Old age and forgetfulnes.