C drive (NTFS) not available in CD-Booted Knoppix (HP box)

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Originally Posted by pepsi_max2k

I think I've got exactly the same problem. I just used Knoppix for the first time yesterday and I'm pretty sure it only showed two 390B hard drives on the ram or cd, but not the main hard drive.

It's a 60GB drive with the whole thing in a single partition with windows xp installed. It's also in a HP Pavillion 7965.

I think HP use their own version of system recovery or product activation so it might be something to do with that.

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So, can you see the D: drive (system recovery file partition of the main HD)? According to the HP website, your model didn't ship with separate recovery disks either, so I assume that they did the same thing with yours as they did with mine - to partition off a D: drive in FAT32, just large enough to hold the recovery files. Alternatively, I suppose they may have put the recovery files in a hidden folder on the C: drive. Anyway, I can see this D: partition in Knoppix, but not the C:, and Knoppix assumes that the D: partition is hda1.

sorry mr, i messed up :oops: i can see the main partition now.

there's two hard disk icons on the desktop, one must be the hp recovery thing labled hda1 and it's got a hp folder and other stuff in it, the other is labled hda2 and has got the main windows stuff on it.

either they really weren't there first time, i didn't look hard enough through the folders or i'm just blind . :(

Well, so much for my hypothesis, then.

Well, I put Knoppix aside for a while, and came back to it last night. As a reminder, appx 4 gig of my 80 gig primary HD was partitioned out at the factory for WinXP & HP system recovery (as D:, FAT 32), with the rest of my primary drive partitioned in NTFS as C:, while the 80 gig NTFS slave HD I installed is G:. Knoppix can see G: (as hdb1) and D: (as hda1) but not C:, and I still don't know why. :?

OK, last night, I was in Windows, moving a bunch of directories and data from G: to C:. After I was done, I booted the Knoppix CD. As usual, hda1 was D:, hdb1 was G:, and no C: - no surprise. What was really weird, though, was that hdb1 displayed all the files and directories that I had cut from G: and pasted to C:. What's more, I could open those deleted files and directories in hdb1, as if they were still there!

I realize that deleting data in Windows doesn't really delete the data, but I thought that it somehow marked the data as deleted. Apparently, Knoppix doesn't care that it's marked deleted (at least in NTFS), and is able to read these files that Windows no longer can!

Spooky!

Sort of opens up a new world of possibilities for file recovery. Has anyone else encountered this???

Oh, one other factor which may enter into this - I have Norton SystemWorks installed on the computer. NSW alters somewhat the behavior of the recycle bin in Windows, leaving some files as "protected". Could it be that this has some role in these strange goings on??

Until I can get my arms around why Knoppix appears to behave in such a strange and unpredictable way w/r/t file management, I'm afraid to try a dual-boot HD install. :roll: Anyway, I've initiated a defrag on C: and G:, and we'll see if this answers any questions.

SOLVED!

As far as I can tell, all of my hypotheses were dead wrong (which probably explains why no one else knew the answer either). Norton Utilities (Windows) comes with an application called GoBack, by Roxio. The program is intended to facilitate undoing stupid mistakes that cause your computer to have problems (not that I would ever need such a thing, of course :wink: ). WinXP has this ability already, but I figured that it didn't cost any more, and might help.

Anyway, as I was clearing off my G: drive in preparation for repartitioning it to accept an HD install, I ran into problems because GoBack installed several MB of hidden files. So, when I deactivated GoBack, I went into Knoppix to use qtparted, and son-of-a-gun, there was my C: drive!! I don't fully understand why GoBack apparently kept Knoppix from seeing an NTFS partition of one drive, but not the NTFS partition of another drive, but it seems that it did. So, in case anyone else has this problem, they can read that it had nothing to do with the make of my computer or the way in which they defined the recovery partition. They can also read that GoBack apparently created many more problems than it prevented :evil: