Recovery of corrupt IDE HDD via USB converter

**ajensl** · 03-30-2008, 05:42 AM

Hi all, in the process of copying files from an old HDD via USB converter onto a new HDD the comp froze and I had to reboot. Now the old drive is corrupted and I was wondering if Knoppix would work in this situation? IE Would Knoppix recognize the IDE drive connected via a USB converter cable?
I would think it would just treat it as a removable USB HDD because Windows does, but I don't want to waste time on this if it won't work.

FYI I run XP SP2
Q6600 2.4Ghz
2Gb DDR2 @ 1066Mhz
3870X2 1Gb
GB x38-DS4 mobo

**Harry Kuhman** · 03-30-2008, 05:57 AM

In general Knoppix will read an IDE drive on a USB adapter. But obviously there are times when Windows will muck up it's partition so bad that Knoppix can't read it either. It seems worth a try though.

Be advised that while Knoppix might be able to read the drive on a USB adapter, it should not be used to try to write the files to another disk partition if that partition is formatted as NTFS. Alternatives include copying the files to a FAT partition, a Linux partition, or to read the files with Knoppix but transfer them to a Windows machine across a network (I like to install a FTP server on the windows box and use Konquror as the FTP client on the Knoppix box for this).

**ajensl** · 03-30-2008, 06:14 AM

I was going to transfer the files from the old HDD onto a new HDD which is NTFS, should I not be doing that? And why not?

**Harry Kuhman** · 03-30-2008, 06:47 AM

Writing to NTFS with Knoppix will corrupt the NTFS partition. Think of this as a little gift from Linux hating Microsoft. Sometimes people get away with it, but often not and all data is lost. I don't know the status of the newest Knoppix 5.3.1 in this area yet, but since I don't know that it's safe and I have the experience of the last five years, I don't trust it. I suggest following the advice of my previous post.