Large extremely important NTFS files...

Recently, my laptop crashed and now all that shows up is the BSOD saying "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME'

I have large amounts of data, about 30 gigs which I need to extract from the laptop.

I've decided to use Knoppix to extract the data, but sadly, I'm a uber n00b in Knoppix.

I've been hearing horror stories about how Captive-ntfs can screw the whole HD up?

If that being the case, I need to know of a way to copy all that data (30 gigs of NTFS files), into a new HD using Knoppix. Without any loss of data.

I apologize if this question sounds repetitive in the forums but I am at a desperate state and rushing for time. The data in the HD is extremely important and I cannot risk doing something wrong.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gurdian

Recently, my laptop crashed and now all that shows up is the BSOD saying "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME'

I have large amounts of data, about 30 gigs which I need to extract from the laptop.

I've decided to use Knoppix to extract the data, but sadly, I'm a uber n00b in Knoppix.

I've been hearing horror stories about how Captive-ntfs can screw the whole HD up?

If that being the case, I need to know of a way to copy all that data (30 gigs of NTFS files), into a new HD using Knoppix. Without any loss of data.

I apologize if this question sounds repetitive in the forums but I am at a desperate state and rushing for time. The data in the HD is extremely important and I cannot risk doing something wrong.

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Just how large are the individual files themselves?

Knoppix should be able to read the NTFS file just fine with no risk, as long as the data is still there (not Knoppix's fault if Windows already destroyed the data). Where you can put that data depends somewhat on what other places you have to store the data (if another disk on the same computer it should not be an NTFS partition). If you have a local network you might transfer it to another computer with FTP or by getting networking going between Knoppix and the other box (file system on the other box is not an issue here). If the individual files are 650 megs or under in size I can show you how to write them to CD, even if you have only one CD drive (as long as it's a writeable drive). Oh, we should also ask how much memory you have on this system (it might allow you to use the totam option and make things even simplier).

The data is about 1 gig in size with others more or less the same. I intend to put the data into a seperate hard disk connected to the PC.

If i understand correctly, that HD mustn't be NTFS yes? it should be fat32 then?

So lemme see if i get this right,

I can connect the laptop ntfs drive (via usb casing), boot up knoppix 3.6., Copy the large gigabyte contents from the laptop ntfs drive onto a seperate fat32 drive, without any loss or corruption of data correct? (Assuming XP didn't eat up the files in the first place)

As long as you mount your NTFS read-only (which is the default in Knoppix when you just boot and click on the hard disk icon), no data can be destroyed by Knoppix.

So if I where you, I would simply boot from the Knoppix CD and check whether your data is still accessible from within Knoppix. If it is not, you might want to consider a specialized data rescue software or service.
If it still is, then let's think about how to save it to another location.

Again: as long as you mount your NTFS read-only there is no risk.

Greetings,
probono

i've booted into knoppix before and the drive looks absolutely fine...

so can i start backing it up then?

lemme confirm again, use only fa32 drives yes? no ntfs?

what if i burned them into cd's?

does knoppix 3.6 have burning software?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gurdian

.....lemme confirm again, use only fa32 drives yes? no ntfs?

what if i burned them into cd's?

does knoppix 3.6 have burning software?

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Knoppix has burning software.

Unfortunately, unless you have enough RAM memory to use the toram option and copy the entire Knoppix CD into memory, then you can't take the CD out of the drive, so you would need two drives, and either the second would have to be the CD writer, or you would have to use some tool (like Smart Boot Manager) to let you boot the Knoppix CD from the second drive.

There's also the issue of file size, since writing the files to a CD would either require you to split files (again needing some place you could write the temporary parts - not the ntfs volume) or limt you to the size of the media. If the file size is not an issue I can give you a little trick - get the Linux distro Damn Small Linux - it fits in 50 meg and it also can write CD's. Burn some images as the first session of a multi-session disk and leave the fisk open for future sessions. Then you can boot into Damn Small Linux, and use the CD writing software there to write to the remaining 650 megs of the CD. The resulting CD is no longer bootable, but has up to 650 megs of recovered files on it.

Gee, I'm wondering if DSL has a toram option also - it should need a lot less ram than Knoppix and would let you write up to 700 megs on fresh CD's that way..

Can you network that computer to another system that could hold the recovered files? I would think that might be the best way. I would just do binary file transfers via FTP to another system.

Don't worry!

I got 2 seperate drives, a dvd drive and a dvd-writer (btw i have 512 megs)

furthermore, all of the files can be burned into the cd's without splitting them

gonna try and burn the ntfs files into cd's now...wish me luck

btw, i CAN read the cd's in xp right? (stupid question i know)

DSL does have a toram option.

The drive doesn't have to be FAT, it just can't be ntfs because of the lack of stable drivers.

When you have the Fat drive connected, first click on the icon. Then right-click the icon -> actions -> change read/write
Otherwise you won't be able to write the files to the fat drive.

As for the cds, there is a standard format, abbre. to ISO that almost all cds are burnt in (with exception to udf for packet writing)
So yes you can read the cds.

Good luck.

Well gentlemen, as I'm typing this, Knoppix 3.6 is running on my system now and i'm using my dvd-writer to burn my data.

Sadly, my burning is crawling at a speed of 1.1MB/s :( , must be the fact that it's reading from the USB drive which has my laptop HD and burning onto the DVD?

Is it possible to copy about 20 gigs of data onto the Knoppix "desktop"? (really sorry if i don't know the correct term). After all I only have 512 megs of ram...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gurdian

.....Is it possible to copy about 20 gigs of data onto the Knoppix "desktop"? (really sorry if i don't know the correct term). After all I only have 512 megs of ram...

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Well, that's the bottom line, isn't it? Just where would that 20 gigs go? Certainly not into 512 meg of RAM (a lot of that is already being used too). And the USB bottleneck would still exist.

USB drives can be the pits for speed (even USB2 drives tend to be much slower than the USB2 spec would allow for). Transfers via network would likely be your best bet speed-wise, but since you never answer questions in that area it seems you don't have another computer you could network with, or you just don't want to try that. At least you seem to be getting the files back.

Let's talk about networking then. Sorry that I didn't answer the question earlier.

Logically, I have 2 PC's. One is this busted Dell notebook. The other is the Desktop that I'm using right now to do the dvd burning.

Now even IF i do set up a network between these two, where would I copy the data to?

I have about 500 gigs in the desktop but it's all in NTFS format.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gurdian

Let's talk about networking then. Sorry that I didn't answer the question earlier.

Logically, I have 2 PC's. One is this busted Dell notebook. The other is the Desktop that I'm using right now to do the dvd burning.

Now even IF i do set up a network between these two, where would I copy the data to?

I have about 500 gigs in the desktop but it's all in NTFS format.

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OK, I see what you've done and it seems like you only have one computer now, the desktop.

Sometimes when Windows is blown on a laptop, people find that they can still boot Knoppix (obviously there are a lot of things that could happen to a laptop that would prevent that). It sounds like that might have even been the case for you, after all, if your desktop can't read the UBS drive from XP then there must be something mucked up with the directory structure that is confuding XP, and would have confused it on the notebook too. Had you managed to boot Knoppix on the notebook then you could have transfered the files by ethernet to the desktop (desktop still running xp so it can certainly write to ntfs just fine). There are a lot of ways to transfer the files, I would just use FTP.

With the laptop out of the picture, you would need another computer somewhere that you could transfer too to avoid writing the DVD's. It might still take an awful long time to suck the data off of a (now) usb drive, but at least you wouldn't have to be there to change DVD's as needed, you could go to bed and have a life while the files move to the other system.

Wait, hang on there...I haven't told you the entire story... :oops:

The laptop boots up Knoppix just fine. I tried it just now.

Reason why I didn't just backup from the laptop using the built in CD burner is because I wanted to save on CD's and use DVDs instead (Really bad choice there, considering how fast I'm going now)

It'd be intresting to know how to network these two together. Things would be much more efficient than it is now...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gurdian

Wait, hang on there...I haven't told you the entire story... :oops:

The laptop boots up Knoppix just fine. I tried it just now.

Reason why I didn't just backup from the laptop using the built in CD burner is because I wanted to save on CD's and use DVDs instead (Really bad choice there, considering how fast I'm going now)

It'd be intresting to know how to network these two together. Things would be much more efficient than it is now...

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Yea, plus with files a gig in size or more, 700 meg CD's present another problem.

How you network the two systems depends on what equipment you have. I'm assuming that you have ethernet on both systems. If so and you have high speed internet access through a typical home DSL/cable router, then each computer is asigned it's own IP address when it boots into Windows and Knoppix respectively. You should be able to ping each machine from the other (you may have to shut down a firewall in XP for this). If you can do that then just start up an ftp server in one and run a client in the other and make sure you transfer the files as binary files (not as text files or automatic under any circumstances, it could corrupt the files). Personally I would run an FTP server on Windows, but that's just because I've already done so and it took me all of about 5 minutes to set up and get running. I'm pretty sure Knoppix provides an FTP server too, but I'm not the one to talk you through that (anyone else is welcome to join in here). One good guess might be type "man ftp" at a command prompt.

If you don't have a router to assign dhcp addresses, you can still do it. You'll either need a cross over cable to directly connect the 2 computers, or if you don't have a cross over cable or a way to make one, a switch or hub and 2 regular network cables. Then you have to assign the computers two unique IP addresses (something in the 192.168.xxx.xxx range is always good as long as you're not trying to connect directly to the Internet). The command is ifconfig in Knoppix to see your settings, you can do a manual setup with the command netcardconfig and tell it not to use dhcp. Make the Windows settings from the windows control panel (networking, I think). Again, get it to where you can ping each computer from the other and you're nearly there.

I've gotta crash, but I'm sure others can help you through it if you ask more questions. You might want to start a new thread in the networking forum to reach people more likely to be interested in that area.

What kernel version is your knoppix on desktop running ? If it is 2.6, it comes with a standard NTFS driver which is safe to "REWRITE" on NTFS fs.

What you would need to do then is to :

1. create one large file(whatever GB) when you are running XP/NT.
2. boot KNOPPIX and loop mount this file
4. Boot KNOPPIX on your laptop


Then use netcat(or nc at the command line) to cat the whole partition from the laptop to the desktop. From the desktop, also run netcat to dump the incoming stream to the loop mount device.

After it is done, you have your whole NTFS image in that file which you can mount under your desktop KNOPPIX and retrieve whatever content you have inside.

Even you cannot boot KNOPPIX on your desktop, you can have netcat with cygwin.

netcat is your friend, if you don't want to take out the 2.5" HD from the laptop. I would just get an USB enclosure put the HD there. In fact, this things happened to me before on my Dell laptop. I thought the HD is hoisted but after took it out and use as an USB HD, everything is fine, may be related to temperature.

The 2.6 kernel has that option, but I think it disabled in knoppix.


As for networking. The drive type doesn't matter, windows uses SMB to share files. SMB is compatable with older versions of windows that don't support ntfs, so windows handles all the writing and reading so that other computers can work with it.

If your networked and the other computer can accept sharing. (Right click the shared folder and make sure it allows writing.)

From konqueror tpye

smb://other_computer_name

Click the folder, then copy and paste your files.