Sorry, I thought I had asked when I posted. I wanted to ask for recommendations for using Knoppix to transfer the files in question first to an ext3 fs and then to FAT or back to NTFS. The current copy of Knoppix I have, though, only gives me RO access to NTFS. I was wondering if the current Knoppix distro has read/write capabilities for NTFS so that I could move (instead of just copy) the files over to the ext3 partition, then to FAT.

As for having the space, I have a second drive in the system that's big enough to partition into a sizeable ext3 partition with room leftover for file storage on FAT (I can't even format the drive to FAT32 using XP, what a joke).

Ideally I'd like to return to Linux but I don't want to even deal with installing on an old Dimension 2350.

Again, sorry that I forgot to actually posit my question and for leaving out there the assumption that after reading this thread that I thought that writing to NTFS was considered safe. After what I read before my first post, I truly didn't think that would be an ideal solution, I just didn't take the time to think out an alternate plan to ask about and get feedback on.

Thanks for the help, Harry.

So right now, the question is:

Does Knoppix have rw support for NTFS so I can move the files off the drive, thereby stripping the permissions and freeing up space on that drive (the files in question take up about 3GB of space (mostly anime))?

If not, I'll have to find another, more costly and unsavory, solution.