Extracting to Floppy Disk

Up until now I have only booted Knoppix for a very brief explore of Linux.
I am using CD 3.3 to look at an (old) Win98SE configuration.
Win98 won't start, but I can view the hard disks with Knoppix.
There are some files I would like to retrieve from the drives. The only option I have is to copy them to the floppy drive, but I can't get to it withing Knoppix.
On the desktop I have all the drives showing - floppy disk, CD-Rom, hard disk partitions.
I can view the contents of the drives OK.
However, when I put a floppy in the drive and attempt to format it, the system says '/mnt/floopy not found' or something very similar.
Help, please.
Echo

This sounds unusual to me. I use Knoppix 3.3 and I find that by putting a floppy in the drive once Knoppix has booted I am able to format it by right clicking the floppy icon with the mouse and selecting "Format floppy disk". You might need to then change the permissions on writing to the floppy by editing the properties as root. Change the permissions to allow users to write to the device.

If you find the above doesn't work try this:
From a terminal window, as user knoppix, type in the following commands, pressing <enter> after each line.
su
etc/init.d/autofs restart

basically, this unmounts all the file systems then remounts them , so close all your work before you do this. After that, the standard commands are mount and umount.

Regarding copying the files to be rescued. If you have a USB connection you could try to copy them to a USB stick. From a terminal window, as user knoppix, type in the following commands, pressing <enter> after each line.

su
modprobe usb-storage
mkdir /mnt/usbstore
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/usbstore
cp /mnt/hda2/Documents\ and\ Settings/Enter\ name/My\ Documents/*
umount /mnt/usbstore

(this assumes the Windows 98 partition is hda2, it might be hda1 or 3 etc.)
It should copy all the files in "My Documents" to the USB stick.
Hope this helps
Regards,
Mark

Lets try to mount manually.
to make things more straight i open a console ant type

Code:

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sudo su

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you first need a "mountpiont"
that is a directory where you can wi all the files

Code:

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mkdir /mnt/floppy

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now we can try mounting a floppy (already formatted and wih some files)

Code:

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mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy -o users,gid=users,rw

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now you should be able to see the files on your flopy

Code:

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ls -al /mnt/floppy

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now we unmount it

Code:

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sync&&umount /mnt/floppy

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now you may remove the disk
to format a floppy I issue the comand

Code:

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fdformat /dev/fd0h1440&&mkdosfs /dev/fd0

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this formats the floppy and makes a filesystem on it.
to exit root (the sudo su at the beginning) i give comand

Code:

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exit

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if you want more ust ask.

I went back to basics and finding that I couldn't boot from a floppy, I looked under the bonnet and found that the cable to the FDC was not pushed home.
I have now extracted the files I need from the HDD.
I cannot access the PC's second hard disk from Windows but I can see it with Knoppix.
I can change its properties so that it's not Read-only, but when I attempt to delete anything, I doesn't allow me.
What I really want to do is format the drive before junking it.
Thank you for your replies - I haven't reached the stage of working with raw linux! I'm still working with the safety net of 'windows'! :oops:
Echo

which drive? what does

Code:

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fdisk -l

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display?
about wiping a disk. hmm, you sure you want to totaly wipie it? if YES, here we go.
let us say that it is hda you want to wipe (whole disk, removing all partitions, hda1 hda2 hda3...) then you first unmpount that disk (ALL partitions on it) below X is replaced with 1, 2, 3... untill hda is no longer mounted.

Code:

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umount /mnt/hdaX

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Code:

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dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=999999999999

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this will write random data to the disk wiping it to the point where recoverey is painful (possible but...).
if you do this a few times (requiering patience, LOTS of patience) i would say it is wiped.
a team of students did this (or something similar) 20 times, then they tried to recover data with different tools. they got some discernible data even after 20 overwrites so... completly data free is not likely.
as to formating it after a wipe.
first make one/several partition/s (using cfdisk perhaps).
now we make a filesystem on that/those partition/s

Code:

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mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/hda1

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makes a fat32 filesystem on the 1'st partition.

Code:

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mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/hda2

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makes a fat32 filesystem on the 2'nd partition.