Hello,
I have been struggling with a boot problem on my XP laptop...similar to many others.
I ran the knoppix 6.0.1 live CD but my hdd file system did not automatically mount as discussed in an earlier thread.
I was reluctant to mount the drive (write to it) as I have files in it that I would really like to recover.
I shut down Knoppix and tried a reboot with the XP installation disk which eventually brought me to the dos prompt through the repair option.
I ran chkdsk /r , which took about an hour to complete and then tried to reboot...WHICH WORKED...I ran spybot and adaware with no major threats found so I decided to mount an external hdd and get a backup of first my documents and then I planned to do a complete backup for ease of reloading.
The moment I plugged in the external drive, my laptop froze and will not reboot...go figure.
THis morning I rebooted Knoppix and the HDD was automatically mounted! ...go figure again.
I would like to copy the content of "my documents (XP)" to the external HDD (which, by the way, was immediately recognized) but not mounted. Interestingly, my memory stick was immediately recognized and mounted and could be used for storage except it is too small.

What I would like to know is:

1. Is it likely that mounting the HDD will corrupt any of my XP files?
I recognize this may be superstition on my part but I am not sure that Knoppix doesn't attempt to partition the drive to make room for itself. SO...DOES KNOPPIX PLAY WELL ENOUGH WITH XP TO SHARE DISK SPACE WITHOUT CONFLICT? They are both ntfs.

2. I want to backup my files to my external HDD but am not sure exactly how to do it (as it is not currently mounted). In the "My Documents" screen I attempted to drag and drop the folder unsucessfully to the memory stick. Is this just a windows thing? I need to know how to do this, so precise instructions and/or links to documentation for file transfers (in the explorer-type screen) would be greatly appreciated.

3. Can anyone explain this progression of events? Does this sound like a good plan? Any potential problems I am not seeing?

4. This also seems like a good forum for a smallish rant so, here goes.

I have a long, blighted history with Microsoft. I took my first computer classes at LSU in 1974 when we still punched cards. I enjoyed MS-DOS and held on to it until the Windows 3.x GUI became such a force in the marketplace that my clients were asking for it. Under intense pressure from my biggest client I oversaw his office conversion to the new OS and promptly lost the account due to the instability of the release...death by blue screen of death. Since that time, the Gates plan has been to trump my planning with planned obsolescence, push me (and my clients) away from troubleshooting with distributed, generational and layered programming and canned utilities, and has managed to run the cost of computing through the roof and to their account by defeating any and all hints of simplicity, legacy programming and a reduction of viable command line tools. I was disappointed to find such a poverty of available dos commands...obviously Mr. Gates does not value my files (or my work) as highly as I do. It is tax season and the same thing happened last year (one week earlier). The cost of doing business with Microsoft has become too dear. The open source community has, today, gained another convert. They will not notice and I am glad because it is prima facia evidence of their inevitable demise...rant over

Thanks in advance,
b.line