Bad Linux Hard Drive - Wanna Use Knoopix to Recover Files

Hello:

I am trying to recover my files from a bad hard drive using Knoppix.

1. I was running Read Hat Linux on an IBM ThinkPad when the hard drive failed. It get to the point of booting and just spins and gives seek errors on the console.

2) Knoppix_V5 to the rescue ... so I thought.

3) When I boot up Knoopix, it gets to the point "Scanning for Harddisk partitions and creating /etc/fstab ...."
It starts behaving the same as in step 1 above because Knoppix is trying to read the hard drive.

4) I can remove the hard drive and boot Knoppix but then I don't know how to mount the hard drive.

Can you help me with this? I want to do something like e2fsck -C -c -p -y /dev/hda1 so that I can see if this will repair the disk. I want to get the files off /home/rossi/.

Any advice will be extremely appreciated.

Kind regards,

Angelo :(

boot knoppix with the cheatcode:
knoppix nofstab noswap

Hello:

Thank you for the tip. It worked!! I was able to

1) mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 and copy /home/rossi to a external drive.

2) fix the hard drive with e2fsck. When I shudown the knoppix system and tried my hard drive, it booted!!!

I am not taking and chances though. The hard drive still has a death rattle. I have ordered another drive.

Thanks again.

Warm regards,

Angelo

:D :D