Really Strange Boot Question - Change the Knoppix drive.

Is it possible to move the Knoppix CD (3.7, 2004-12-08) to another CD drive once Knoppix loads?

I have an internal DVD-RW and external (USB) CD-RW drive, and want to boot Knoppix from the cd to rescue my harddrive (it had a head crash and damaged the part where Windows is stored, so windows won't boot). However, Knoppix only boots when I put the cd into the internal DVD drive, and not the external CD drive... Thus, I can rescue my files by burning them to CDs, but I can't make a DVD, Knoppix is taking up the DVD drive.

Is there any way to boot Knoppix from my DVD drive and then make Knoppix run from my CD drive?

Or, is there any way to save my files to a DVD with the setup I've described? (Knoppix in the internal DVD drive, and use of an external CD drive, preferrably without using the harddrive - it's NTFS anyway.)

1. I don't know a way to do this (not that it means anything) :oops: Maybe someone else does.

2. I do have a recommendation for addressing your problem in a different fashion, using the steps below.

3. Boot the CD from your DVD burner, make your hard drive writable (right click the drive icon, properties, third tab, uncheck read only, exit). Make sure your hd is not mounted (no little green triangle in the corner of the drive icon - if it is there, right click and select unmount). Now, open a terminal window, and type "sudo qtparted". This will open a hard drive partitioning program with a graphical interface. Select your main hd partition, and resize it to free up a gigabyte or more at the end. Now, create a new partition with that free space, formatted as vfat. Commit your changes, and hopefully all will go well. If not, retrace your steps as needed, and maybe consult some guides about qtparted. Make note of the designation of your new partition (e.g., hda3, or whatever it is).

4. Once you have your new partition, restart Knoppix as before, but this time, when the very first knoppix boot screen comes up, type "knoppix26 tohd=/dev/hdxx" (substitute the new partition name for the hdxx - if it's hda3, you will type "knoppix26 tohd=/dev/hda3"). The computer will boot, but will also copy the compressed file system to your new partition and run from there. Now you can eject your disk from your burner and use your burner for other purposes. K3B is the program you want to use with the burner. From now on, whenever you start knoppix, you can insert the disk in your burner and type the same boot code, except that you will substitute "fromhd" for "tohd".

5. At this point, you've almost got a basic PMI going, so you can go back into qtparted and set partitions for a persistent home and saved configuration. Here's a link if you are interested. Now you can use Klik to install software, things will run faster, and you can use your burner.

HTH, jd

You make me happy, thank you.