Quote Originally Posted by autumnhome
When I do that, it gives me the following error message:

WARNING: The partition /def/sda1 is of type NTFS! Writing to this filesystem can cause data loss. Because of that, you should only do write operations manually and expect to have to reinstall the filesystem afterwards. This dialog won't do this risky thing for you and will quit now without changing anything.
This drive is a "Speed Metal" USB External USB 80 gb. It also belongs to a friend of mine and I certainly don't want to screw it up.

Any suggestions?
Hmm..., if it were YOUR drive, I'd recommend reformatting it as FAT32 (vfat). Short of that, I'd look to see what other storage options you have. I don't guess you were planning to buy a new HD anytime soon, were you? One other option - there is a guy in the Netherlands who came out with a bootable live CD version of Windows XP, which you could use to write directly to the NTFS partition. http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ Put it this way, if you have more money than time, buy your own HD upgrade, format it in FAT32 and copy using Knoppix; OTOH, if you have more time than money, you might try the WinPE solution. Or, if your friend is really nice, maybe you could format his external in FAT32, offload your backup files, and then reformat to NTFS (if that's what he wants) once you get your Windows running again. I have to say, I cannot see the logic of an external drive being formatted in NTFS, unless it's being used more or less as a permanent HD. The nature of USB drives is to be portable - to do backups and the like, so the added security of NTFS makes little sense to me (but, hey, it's not my drive).