after changing root password...

[Harry Kuhman]

My daughter made her files private in Windows XP. I then had to rebuild the machine and of course her user identification number changed. Hence now no-one can get to her files.

Using Knoppix live from cd I can see her files and open them, but I cannot move or copy them.

If you can open the files in Knoppix and there is actually something readable there, then you can certainly move that information elsewhere. If the data is encrypted when you open the file then Knoppix is not going to be of much use to break any encryption.

Assuming that the files are readable and contain the information that you want, the problem is likely two part: By default Knoppix opens partitions (and files) as read only. This is a design choice since Knoppix is often used to introduce new uses to Linux and it is felt that Knoppix used this way on an existing Windows system should do no harm. The good news is that you can override this default. The bad news is that you can only override it sometimes; that's where the second part comes in: Microsoft has apparently gone to a lot of effort to make sure that Linux cannot write to a NTFS partition without corrupting it. So while you can read a file on a NTFS partition safely, you can not write to an NTFS partition. You need to write to a FAT partition or to move the file elsewhere.

Some common techniques for recovering files from trashed Windows systems with Knoppix include: Moving the files to floppies (the default format on a floppy is FAT, which Linux can read and write just fine), move the files to a flash USB device, Move the files to a USB or firewire hard drive with a FAT partition (not a NTFS partition), e-mail the files to yourself, upload the files to a website like yousendit.com and retreive them later from a windows system, transfer the files to another computer on your network (or even on the Internet) with samba / Lin neighborhood or FTP (I like FTP) or any other file transfer technique.

If you do have a FAT partition available that you can see from the Knoppix desktop, then you can right click on it and use the actions ... submenu to make it writeable. Unfortunately XP defaults partitions to NTFS and not FAT and most users stick with that.

I have not tried to install Knoppix and am using it live from the cd.

Not a problem; I don't generally help people who try a hard drive install. (If you do decide that you want a Linux install that is a lot like Knoppix, consider Debian rather than Knoppix.) I'm not sure what server you are trying to run; I generally do transfers by running a FTP server on a Windows system and using the Knoquror window that opens with Knoppix boots as a FTP client. But that is not to say that it is the only way to do transfers. There are almost too many ways, you just have to find one that works for you.

I was under the impression that as a Super User I would be able to move and copy her files into another directory so she can once again get acces to them - seems I may be wrong on that point.

You shouldn't need to be root/super user to do any file transfer. You might need it if you were starting some server on the Knoppix system to help you do a transfer to another system, but if you can run an FTP server on a Windows system then you can use Knoppix as an FTP client without ever becoming root. You may also be able to use the networking built into Knoppix; I've had good luck with it at times and bad luck at other times. Your results may be better but FTP always works for me.

I am a Linux convert now nd will be switching my operating system in the next few weeks - but in the meantime she needs her Biology coursework!

Any ideas on how I can lift the access ban left over from rebuilding the machine?

I'm not clear on what the access ban is refering to, but hopefully the above will give you some ideas on recovering the files.