Knoppix 5.3.1 Live CD -- Error message during booting

[Harry Kuhman]

Glad to hear that you are making progress. That things changed after disabling floppy booting from the sequence is very very strange and something that I had never seen reported before, but good to know.

One thing that I want to correct. That the disc booted on another system does not tell you that there are no disc issues. It certainly doesn't look like there are any disc issues in this case, but high speed burns are well known to work (or at least seem to work) on some systems but not others. So the fact that a disc works in one system is absolutely not proof that there is no disc problem.

As to your last question, I think you would be best off starting a new thread for it. I'm not really clear what the issue is either. If you are trying to move files off your hard drive, you normally should be able to do that.. But you already mentioned that your hard drive is corrupt, so it might not be readable. While Knoppix can often recover files when Windows will not boot or read the disk, windows is quite capable of destroying it's disk structure so badly that Knoppix can't read the data. If you are trying to write to the hard disk, I would strongly advise against that. Some people think that Knoppix can safely write ti NTFS partitions. I'm not one of those. There were many previous versions of Knoppix that some people claimed could write to NTFS too, but they all ended up corrupting the disk in one way or another. The data on my NTFS partitions is too important to me to risk finding out that the trend continues. And there would seem to no point at all in trying to write to a disk that you say is corrupted.

The references to browsers confused me too. Start a new thread, tell us in more detail what you want to do and someone will likely try to help you. I just hope it's not someone who thinks it's safe to write to NTFS partitions now. You may also want to look at the wiki (documentation link near the top of this page). I don't remember the exact title, but there is a section about data recovery with Knoppix.

[bigspanner]

Thanks Harry, for all your help and wisdom.

Allow me to try to explain the circumstance whereby I begun to look at Knoppix.
It started from two angles. One, I had a JPEG file in my portable hd (FAT32 formatted), which has strange characters in its name. I tried to delete, move, rename it in my XP o/s PC, but it would not allow me to. Previously, I could see the image, but only recently, no image software is able to view it. It seem to have morphed into an indestructable file. I tried using Unlocker, MoveOnBoot or Killbox to delete the file. I even tried File Shredder of Spybot & Destroy, but all to no avail. So, this led me to Knoppix, as I read from some forums that Linux could help me to delete the file. I had the portable hd attached to my good PC and booted with Knoppix. But I still cannot delete this JPEG file. However, using one of the image software in the Knoppix DVD bundle, I could see the image. That is all and nothing can be done to the file.

I did the unthinkable here. In my good PC (booted up with Knoppix), I tried to move the JPEG file into another directory in my NTFS formatted hd of my PC. I also tried to use Knoppix to move some other files in my NTFS file-system of my PC. But I could not. I will start another thread to seek advise on this, but this here is just to give you some background of how I got involved with Knoppix.

Two, I had another corrupted PC, with my XP o/s corrupted beyond repair. So, I tried to use Knoppix to boot to see the files. I can see the files alright. That was yesterday! I also did the unthinkable yesterday. I had my portable hd, where the JPEG file is, attached before I booted my corrupted PC. I tried to move some files in my corrupted PC and also I tried again to purge the JPEG file from my portable hd, but all not successful.

Today, when I booted my corrupted PC using Knoppix, it was successful, but my hda1 (where my file-system is) is officially gone!
This is the message I see when I click on my hda1:

Sorry-kDesktop
service'/UNIONFS/usr/share/application/kde/kfmclient_dir.desktop is malformatted.

PS: No worries, I had already copied out all my important files from my corrupted PC using BARTPE, which I downloaded and burned into a bootable CD before I started experimenting with Knoppix.

Now, I offcially cannot read my file-system using Knoppix and I don't know what wrong I did. I could try to find out why as I am excited by the potential of Linux and wish to show my defiance to Microsoft but as I am not a techie, I fear my resistance to Microsoft may be futile.
Just awhile ago, my Knoppix froze on me and I did not do much other than click a few of the icons on the toolbar to explore. I feel that if I am committed to Knoppix, I should try the hd installed version. The DVD live version is just too unstable and slow for me I guess.

By the way, thanks for your generous help and I really appreciate it. Right now, I had "force" removed Knoppix from my DVD drive and booted up my corrupted PC using BARTPE. I can see my file-system and all the files are still there. Should I now decide to explore Knoppix further, I will have to decide to re-format my hd to FAT32 instead of NTFS, which Windows desires. I am thinking of having a dual boot system, with both XP and Knoppix.
I will do some research on this first and will be spending more time on this forum reading all the posts here before I plunge in further.

[Harry Kuhman]

I'll wait until you get a new thread started before dwelling too much on the file issues.

... I am thinking of having a dual boot system, with both XP and Knoppix.....

As far as I'm concerned, all systems with Windows and an optical drive are Windows/Knoppix dual boot. If you're talking about installing Knoppix to hard disk, that's just crazy talk (IMHO). If you want Linux installed, install something intended to be installed. Debian would be one choice (and is the distro of Linux that Knoppix is based on). See the warning about installing Knoppix in the hard disk install section of the wiki for details.

[ckamin]

On the other hand, Installing Knoppix to the HD will ensure that one will become a "techie" with no hair left to pull out!

You can try a few different live disks of distros that were meant for HD installation or do as Harry says, Install Debian. I might suggest that you set aside a PC for experimentation and use your primary PC unaltered until you get a good feel for Linux and configuring a dual boot system. You could also just copy the Linux OS to disk and use the "poor man's install" method. That would work with Knoppix and it is not a real installation, so most of the issues from a HD install would not be experienced. There may also be some advantages to this method, since some changes can be made to the files on the hard drive.

For more info:

http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Basic_Poor_Mans

[bigspanner]

Hi ckamin,

Thanks for your post.

May I ask this then. If my PC's hard disk is NTFS formatted because it is running XP now, isn't it now necessary for me to configure another hard disk in my PC to be FAT32 formatted so as to run Linux on my hard disk?

Besides, it begs the question of Knoppix Live DVD on the DVD-ROM. If I am accessing my NTFS file system from this Live DVD, does this mean I should never copy and paste into my existing NTFS formatted hard disk, to preventing it from being corrupted?

I am not sure if I should be asking this question here under this thread or should I start another thread on this. Sorry if I have been inappropriate here. Thanks.

[ckamin]

bigspanner

You can READ the files from an NTFS partition when using a live disk, since it is usually not required to write to the disk. I would recommend not WRITING to an NTFS partition using Linux. So copying and pasting to NTFS is risky. I sometimes use an external drive formatted to FAT32 when I need to save files to disk. Even a thumb drive can work if your needs are small. You certainly don't need to have a FAT32 partition or separate drive in order to run Linux. There is a section in the poor man's install notes that even details how to run it from an NTFS partition. Setting aside a drive or a "partition" for Linux is an option. It can be formatted to whatever file system you desire that is Linux compatible. For a system that also has Windows, formatting to FAT32 will allow both operating systems the ability to read and write to that section. There are some limitations in Windows with the FAT32 file system. Microsoft has limited the size of a FAT32 partition to about 32 Gig in Windows 2000, XP, etc. Windows seems to be able to read and write to a larger FAT32 partition, but the newer versions cannot create one.

I just like the idea that Knoppix can run from the DVD and not require the hard drive or an actual installation to run. If installing Linux, Debian and a few others have worked well for me. A dual boot configuration can be done if you set aside a partition for each operating system. They can coexist on a FAT32 partition, but Windows would be limited by that option and runs best under NTFS. I have done a lot of experimentation with installations and such, but leave my primary PC alone. I'll beat up on older hardware that is not essential. I have fewer heartaches that way. I also have some NAS set up for data backups. Just simple servers with LARGE hard drives. I backup anything that I don't want to lose in several different ways and don't experiment with any of those machines.

[OErjan]

My advice is to restore the better computer for Windows.
then you try installing Debian, ubuntu, xubuntu or slackware to one of the older systems, avoid Knoppix for that as both above have stated, it is not made for hdd, play around som

Debian and Slackware are slightly harder than Ubuntu and xubuntu to install but all are linux at heart.

http://www.ubuntu.com/ (fairly easy)
http://www.xubuntu.org/ (more or less same as above but lighter load on system)
http://www.debian.org/ (where ubuntu, Knoppix, DSL, Xubuntu and many others started out)
http://www.slackware.com/ (one of the two oldest Linux distributions)