Knoppix to recover data from corrupt ntfs

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I have a thread going on about the issue i have with a corrupt ntfs.sys on my windows drive. Here is the link. http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17782561

Anyway been reading that a few people have fixed the problem by using Knoppix. I am downloading the iso now, but wondered if anyone had had any success with this or can give me any pointers or re-assurance that this would work?

Thanks
 
My only issue here, is that i have never used anything like this before, so not that sure what i am doing. Although i did find a walkthrough that a guy had written, so i will follow that.

The only thing that i need to check is that i will be looking to repair the drive and not get the files off until i can boot into windows again.....is this doable via knoppix?

And yes, it's just the ntfs file system that is borked.
 
My machine was runnig fine one minute, went to have dinner and when i came back the machine had blue screened and not been able to start up since. I have ordered another drive that i will use as my boot disk from now on, but i would like some data back off the drive that went down if i can. My main idea is to try and fix the ntfs file system so i can run the drive as a slave and get the files off that way.

thanks guys again for all ya help.
 
Hiya guys, thanks a lot for you help on this one.

The way that i am hoping that i can resolve this is by using Knoppix and booting from a live cd. From what i understand this is self enclosed on the cd and does not use any windows based software to see drives and hardware etc.
If this is the case then i should be able to boot from this cd and see the corrupt drive, from what i understand linux does not use the ntfs file system to see the drive, hence i should be able to see the files on the drive. If i can see the files i should be able to copy them to a FAT formatted drive (was thinking of using a usb key as i do not need to copy that much off).

Once i have copied everything off that i need, from reading above posts i may need to then format the drive within knoppix to a FAT structure, so that i can then format it again to ntfs within windows.

Does this seem ok?
 
I have actually tried installing the drive as a slave to see if i could copy the files over that way, with no luck. I just got blue screens when the machine was starting up and hot swapping did not seem to work either. I ahve not tried any windows utils to see if that could solve it though, but as Knoppix is free, then i thought i might aswell go down that route.

So it would seem that the way i intend on doing this stands a good chance of letting me get my files off. The only thing that i do not have to hand is a spare drive that i could copy the entire contents of the corrupt drive over to. All i actualy want however is my BioShock save games and my .pst file from Outlook. Once i have that, then the rest can be formatted.

Thanks ByteJuggler for you offer of msn help, and i may yet take you up on the offer, all depends on how well i get on navigating and doing what i need to do in Knoppix. Thats if the drive can be seen. one glimmer of hope though is the fact that when i was trying to do the slave drive route, i could see the drive in the bios etc, so hopefuly would mean that its not hardware but software (ntfs)

Going to see if i can get a bigger usb key on the way home, a 2 or 4gb one should be enought to get off what i need.

Thanks again, this kinda stuff is good to know anyway. Just a shame i have to try it out on my own drive!:p
 
Just went to startup using knoppix cd, came up with boot screen for knoppix, hit enter and now just a black screen.....


Any ideas?
 
Right, bit of an update. My last post said about Knoppix just going into a blank screen.
Well i gave up trying to get the data off and unpacked the new drive that i bought from OcUk. Went to install and Windows installer froze at the Windows setup stage...hmmm odd. Anyway next step was to run memtest, did this and boom failed like 10k or something within the first min !
Anyway, took one stick out and all was fine, put the other stick in and would not even post.
So looks like the ram died taking the drive down with it.

Anyway, formating the new drive now. Wil install windows and then worry about getting the info off the old one.

Whilst i am here, i tried running knoppix again, and got further. It went through the detection stage and had my two penguins at the top of the screen etc. Still did not boot up though, screen went blank again, i guess this time though that its just down to boot settings?
 
Right, this has kinda gone in two direction for me know. I have the machine with the new drive and windows loaded. It loaded after i took the damadged dimm out, so now just down to the 1gb or ram. All seems fine with that from what i can see. I will just get another 2gb matched pair and off i go again.

The other part is getting the data that i need off the corrupt drive. After i found that the ram was damadged i did try and put the old drive back in and boot with the single good ram, but still nothing. I am guessing that the ram failed, possible whilst writting and hence causing the ntfs.sys to be corrupted.

As for knoppix then i got it too boot as far as the two penguins on screen and it started to list the hardware and usb's etc, it got so far and just as i thought it was going to start the screen went blank again. I kinda agree that it does look like a gpu issue and i do have a radeon card (1900xt) I am guessing that there are some boot commands that i need to do before i continue at the start of Knoppix. If i get the chance i am going to try and do this at work today, as the machine i can use here is just a dell with onboard gpu etc. This is the machine that i tried booting with the corrupt drive as slave, with no luck.
The version of knoppix that i am using is 5.1, not sure of the build number though i could check as the iso is still on my desktop on another machine.

Thanks again ByteJuggler for you help.
 
Thanks again for helping with this. Like i said above i have not had a chance to try andy boot commands to see if i can get it too boot with my card, going to try later.
The only thing that i kinda thought of is, would the corrupt drive stop it from booting? obviously it stops windows from booting up and gives a blue screen, would Knoppix have an issue with this? I know that knoppix has its own ntfs system that it uses, just did not know if it has to read this drive at all when it is going through its boot sequence.
 
Just trying to get knoppix working again. I can see that after it does its hardware stuff, the screen starts flashing and i can just see that its probing agp. Well i am not agp, bytejuggler, you mentioned agp ealier. Is there a boot option for this?
 
ok this is starting to do my head in now. I have tried turning off agp, using knoppix noagp command, then tried failsafe. Still does the same thing. gets to starting x system or something ( hard to see as the screen is flashing at this point), screen goes blank and thats it!
 
Right i have managed to get it to boot into the desktop enviroment, but using noacpi. From what i understand i should see my corrupt hard disk on the desktop? If not how do i go about trying to mount this drive? Its seen the usb that i connected, as this is what i will use to backup the files that i need.

Oh well, got a nice drive to Gatwick to look forward to and think about my actions ! back to it tonight though!


cheers
 
My main problem though is that i cannot see my hardisks in Knoppix. The only way that i can get it to boot is to use the acpi=off command. Even if i try a good disk it won't mount anything to the desktop.

So i gather that using the acpi=off command disables the hardware mounting basically.....

lol it will see my usb key that i put in !, spose that is something:p

later tonight is fine mate, won't be back till then anyway as taking a mate tot the airport.

Thanks
 
hiya, thanks a lot for that, i only seem to get the cloop0, one up, nothing else. I am guessing that this works for sata?
 
I am going to try it on my Dell machine at work tomorrow, i did not get a chance wednesday. If this is my machine then the dell should be simpler for it.....worth a try.

If not then do you have a link for me to download anothe version (don't have any torrent software whilst machine is down).


thanks
 
yes! i can see my drive on the dell. Prob is how do i copy from the drive to the usb key? From the drive i can see the files that i need and i can right click and select copy, but when i right clcik on the usb key i do not have a past option.....I checked the permissions for that usb and made them all read & write.

So close!
 
Found out how to do it and i have the files on a usb key. Will have to format the drive to FAT now, but will do that once i have made sure thats all the info i need off.

Will let you know when i have succesfully got the files onto my new system.

Meanwhile thanks so much for you help bytejuggler, digital can off beer for ya !!!;)
 
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