[NTLUG:Discuss] HD problems from a Windows machine

[Robert Citek]

On Dec 20, 2005, at 7:55 AM, Russ wrote:

> Someone else replied, off the list, saying that possibly the HD was
> defective already.  He said that where he worked they put the HD's in
> the freezer for a while.  Now he might be pulling my leg but it may
> also be a 'trick of the trade' that might help.
>

Nope, no leg pulling.  It is indeed a 'trick of the trade'.


> If that's what it takes, I could do it but my friend says the only
> important data is on five or six small Microsoft Word files.  I
> thought doing a copy to a floppy would work.
>

How familiar are you with the command line?  If you are comfortable  
with working at the CLI, then you can boot up Knoppix into runlevel 1  
with "boot: knoppix noswap 1"  You then should be able to copy the  
files off the drive to a floppy, USB stick, another drive, or over a  
network.

You had mentioned a kernel panic in an earlier post, which is quite  
odd for Knoppix from a CD.  If booting into runlevel 1 still has  
kernel issues, you can try "boot: failsafe nohwsetup 1"  The failsafe  
label avoids almost all hw detection, including disk.  Beware that it  
also won't detect any USB devices, including a USB keyboard.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Regards,
- Robert
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