My copy of vista broke down and i'm currently trying to use knoppix to copy off data from my laptop's harddrive to an external USB HD.
I'm completely new to linux so i only got as far as i did due to a tutorial.
Here's what i've tried so far. The harddrive as best i recall is an NTFS. Vista was 64bit if that matters.


knoppix@Microknoppix:~$ sudo /bin/bash
root@Microknoppix:~# mkdir /media/disk
root@Microknoppix:~# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /media/disk -o force
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sda1' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
root@Microknoppix:~# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda /media/disk -o force
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sda': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sda' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
root@Microknoppix:~# mount -t vfat -o umask=000 /dev/sda1 /media/disk

root@Microknoppix:~#
root@Microknoppix:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x97646c29

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1530 12289693+ 1c Hidden W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2 * 1531 38914 300280475 7 HPFS/NTFS
root@Microknoppix:~# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda2 /media/disk -o force
ntfs_attr_pread_i: ntfs_pread failed: Input/output error
Failed to calculate free MFT records: Input/output error
NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a
SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very
important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation
for more details.
root@Microknoppix:~#
Do you have any idea what i did wrong?
I'm just trying to get the harddrive mounted for copying. I know the data exists on it since the asus laptop came with an extremely pathetic alternate boot with a mediaplayer/photo browser that can and has looked through my harddrive.