One PC, 2 drives, copying/moving date from one to the other

[Cuddles]

Torriatte,

I think the frustration is; one, due to the fact that Linux ( Knoppix ) is NOT windows, and thus, does not do like Windows does, its a little different. Two, people are trying to help you, but, to help, the best we can, we need information on your situation. So, when someone is asking for something, we are basing a "solution" on the information provided...

Harry is working on the premise that you said the systems were "Windows", windows uses, at last count, five different formats; fat, fat16, fat32, VFat, NTFS - of these formats, Linux has problems with those that are "proprietary", like NTFS - So, if your drives are formated as NTFS, you might have problems anyway. But, lets assume, since you aren't answering that "posted" question, that they are in fat / Vfat, and proceed...

Knoppix doesnt work the same way as your Windows, lets get that out of the way first. You dont click on a shortcut on the desktop and drag it, thats a Windows thing, not Linux. Those shortcuts for your drives, on your desktop, in Knoppix, are not the PHYSICAL drive, but, simply shortcuts, if you did manage to copy one, all you would be doing is copying the shortcut, not the data on that shortcut. To copy the "data" you have to do things a little differently, in Knoppix...

First thing, Knoppix 101:
If a shortcut to a drive, on your desktop, has a little corner in the bottom right, it means the drive is mounted, or openned, if it doesnt have this, it is possibly not mounted.

Knoppix opens things with one mouse click, left button, and gives "options" when you right click. If you left mouse click on a drive shortcut, if the drive is not mounted, it will try and mount the drive, before displaying its contents in a window.

By default, Knoppix will ALWAYS mount a drive as READ-ONLY -=- this is, by nature, for your protection, and the protection of your drives.

To accomplish a copy of data, from one drive to another, you will need to do a combination of mounting, and changing the write mode, from READ-ONLY to READ & WRITE, on your target drive - the one that you want to move / copy the files to...

Lets get you working:
RIGHT-CLICK on the drive that you want to copy the data TO, or, the TARGET drive.
If you have an option to MOUNT the drive, then select that, if the option does not show up, or an option saying "UNMOUNT" is available, then the drive is already mounted.
Now, RIGHT-CLICK on that same drive, this time, look for the option "Make Writtable", or something like that, and select that. That drive SHOULD now be able to be written to.
LEFT-CLICK on the FROM drive, the one that is "defunct" and you want to copy / move data off of. This should bring up a window of the disks contents.
LEFT-CLICK on the TO drive, the one that we want to copy / move the data to, and the same drive we did all the above operations on. This should also bring up, another, window of the disks contents.

Now the copy move process:
In the window that displays the DEFUNCT drives contents, RIGHT-CLICK on a file you want to copy / move, and choose either COPY or CUT ( copy will make a copy of the file, and cut will "ultimately" move the file )

Go to the window that displays where you want to copy / move the file to, navigate through the folders, or create any folders, till you are where you want that file to go. Then, RIGHT-CLICK and select PASTE. The file should either now exists in both locations, or be deleted in the FROM / SOURCE and only exist in the TO / TARGET ( depending on if you wanted to copy, or move, the file )

Do this process for every file, or folder, you want to...

When you are done. You need to unmount the drives, first, close the two windows you were using to view the contents of the two drives. Then, RIGHT-CLICK on each of the drives icons on the desktop, and select UNMOUNT from the options. Do this for both shortcuts to your drives.

I think this should do what you want,
Hope this helps,

[Harry Kuhman]

And it just sits there.

That help ?

Yes Chuck, it helps a lot. I can see exactly what is wrong from the information you posted.

I could tell you what it is, but I already guessed that was what was wrong in a previous post and you completely ignored it. Now you have confirmed that my guess was right. Since you still are not answering other questions I have asked, it would be dangerous and irresponsiable of me to give you a simple one line fix (it could risk the data on your other good drive since I don't know something important that I've asked about), so I'll leave it to you to go back and read what help you have already been given.

Of course, you could follow the other link I gave you and make some CD's that you could rescue your files to, but you seem to want to ingnore that solution. That's OK with me.

And I still wonder why, once the second drive was in a working windows box, you didn't just access that drive from windows. But clearly you can't be bothered to answer straight forward questions like that.

Sure seem like a lot of work just to get a date from that hard drive you moved, doesn't it?

[Torriatte]

Hi Folks and sorry I am frustrasting everyone and failing to post enough info. I'm in a real juggling act here most of the tmie and constantly interupted. My apologies.

FIRST of all the drive is NTFS.

I could NOT read the drive via a DOS boot, etc. so that is why I am trying what I am trying.

I did not try the CD deal because I was trying to learn how to use Knoppix and the GUI and figured that was enought to wade through. I did think the CD deal was interesting and was goint to investigate it when I had a chance. My thought process was that Knoppix should be able to do this OK.

And I understand how to copy now, thanks ! The drives both show mounted. The drives show writable, etc. but it gets an error that it cannot be written to. So is this the NTFS issue ?

Thanks and sorry for the delay in responding.

Chuck

[Cuddles]

Hi Folks and sorry I am frustrasting everyone and failing to post enough info. I'm in a real juggling act here most of the tmie and constantly interupted. My apologies.

FIRST of all the drive is NTFS.

...

The drives both show mounted. The drives show writable, etc. but it gets an error that it cannot be written to. So is this the NTFS issue ?

Quite possible... I would take a look at your /etc/fstab file entry for the drive, it sounds like the drive is being mounted as a VFAT, and when you attempt to write to the disk, it yells about it being incorrect... I havent worked with the NTFS, either native in Windows, or through Linux, but, I think you need to have "captive NTFS" - or something... NTFS is proprietary to Microsoft, and only through some "magic" has it been able to be added into Linux. From what I know, and hear, NTFS in Linux is in its "infancy" stage, not sure how much testing, or how much "working" it is. I have no clue, but, as an educated guess, I would try to get NTFS through Windows first, it knows "more" about the format, than any other OS, but, thats just me... ( you can use a screwdriver as a hammer, but, you cant use a sledgehammer as a screwdriver, kind of thing )

Hope this helps,

[Harry Kuhman]

.......
FIRST of all the drive is NTFS.
....... an error that it cannot be written to. So is this the NTFS issue ?.....

You have the drive mounted read only (you gave us that much in a previous post)

Type: Desktop Config
Size: 390B
Modified: 11/17/04 03.52 pm
Owner: knoppix - knoppox
Permissions: -rw-r--r--
Name: Hard Disk Partition [hda5]
Type: Device
Device: /dev/hda5
File System: auto
Mount Point: /mnt/hda5
Writable: No

I did not post back how to make the drive read/write, because you had not posted what type of drive it was and writing to a NTFS partition from Knoppix can corrupt the entire partition. Now we know it was an NTFS partition.

I would still suggest the other ideas I offered, such as writing the sata to CD or transfering it to another system across a network.

[Torriatte]

Thanks folks,

Yep, at that point the drive was not "writable" but I figured that out and got it changed. Changed the perimssions, etc. and I still cannot get it to work so it must be something to do with NTFS. What fun.

I will investigate the CD solution.

As far as transferring it across a network, are you refering to FTP or something else ?

Thanks !

Chuck

[Harry Kuhman]

Yep, at that point the drive was not "writable" but I figured that out and got it changed......

Boy, sounds like you're just asking for it.

As far as transferring it across a network, are you refering to FTP or something else ?

I would use FTP. Others frequently use something else. More than one way to remove the outer covering of a feline.