unable to access sfs file system with critcal data!!!

[evermuse]

situation is as fallows
a pc containing 1 ide drive and 4 scsi drives
hda1 is the OS drive, i copy crital data from hda1 to sda1
i wipe out the os drive and reinstall knoppix, had some troubke with the install so now im booted from the knoppix 3.3 cd
i try to mount sda1 and i get
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
mount: /dev/sda1 is not a valid block device

acording to cfdisk sda1 is a sfs partition
i have never heard of this until now
-----------------------------------
"fdisk -l /dev/sda" returns

Disk /dev/sda: 9150 MB, 9150996480 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1112 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1112 8932108+ 42 SFS
-------------------------------------
"file - </dev/sda1" returns
bash: /dev/sda1: No such device or address
--------------------------------------
"cat /proc/partitions" returns
major minor #blocks name

8 0 8936520 sda
8 16 8936520 sdb
8 32 8936520 sdc
8 48 8936520 sdd
3 0 78150744 hda
3 1 1502077 hda1
3 2 76646083 hda2
--------------------------------------------
this is a friends server box...
i came out to install a newer version of knoppix for him so he would not be running the web server with an old kernal
i have no idea how retrive the data from sda1 that was wriiten to it with the prior knoppix install
i have no idea what sfs is or why the file system was made as sfs in the 1st place..
all i know is that if that partition can somehow be mounted, with knoppix or any other tool out ther, i need to find out how to do it
can anyone shed any light on this extensivly confusion situation?
-evermuse

[firebyrd10]

try to mount /dev/sda instead of sda1

[evermuse]

"mount /dev/sda /mnt/sda1" returns
mount: you must specify the filesystem type

so then..
"mount -t sfs /dev/sda /mnt/sda1" returns
mount: fs type sfs not supported by kernel


the thing is i mounted this fs with the install of knoppix that was just on the drive...

an older version of knoppix 3.3
im booted on the latest 3.3 iso right now

could the older 3.3 have sfs support while the latest does not?

that doesn't make much sence to me
none of this does... i need this data
-evermuse