[NTLUG:Discuss] HD problems from a Windows machine

[Russ]

Thank you Robert,

I am experiencing the most success since I started this!

On 12/20/05, Robert Citek <rwcitek at alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
>
> 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?
I've used command line a long time ago with Solaris 5.

> If you are comfortable
> with working at the CLI, then you can boot up Knoppix into runlevel 1
> with "boot: knoppix noswap 1"

The first time I tried "boot: knoppix noswap 1", it was not
successful.  The machine hung while trying to establish a path,
displayed error codes, then went into kernel panic.

I tried it again only a few minutes later.  This time there was less
thrashing with the CD-ROM and the PC hung at the attempt to build the
RAM disk.  More errors, and eventually panic.

The third time, I got to the USB scan... It hung, threw out errors and
stopped without kernel panic.

The fourth time, I got all the way through to the roo at tty1 prompt.  I
have moved from the root directory to the dev directory.

I now need to do several things:

1) Search the HD, here called hda, for all files having a DOC suffix,
2) Copy those same files to a floppy.

I have questions about procedures and commands.  Do I need to mount
the HD in order to do a recursive listing for the files?  I think I
know how to do the mount (mount /dev/hda).

Then having found the files I would use the cp command.

How do I determine the designation for the floppy and do I have to mount it too?

I have all my Linux books out looking for commands and procedures but
any direction to speed the process would be appreciated a lot!

> 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.

Another thing that's odd is that the HD is very active for use of the
noswap command.  I've never seen it before.

> 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
> http://www.cwelug.org/downloads
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>
>
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--
Russ