• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Simple Knoppix download?

L

L8ed

Junior Member
I thought I would be able to download a free version of knoppix. I know little or nothing about it, but I need it to help recover files from an old Windows XP formatted hard drive. In any case, the searches I've done seem to take me to foreign languge download sight (I can't understand them) or English sites that promise the download for free, but then expect you to pay for it in one way or another. Help would be appreciated.
 
 
If you go to Knoppix.org and click on the little American/British flag it shows you the english version of the page.
 
There are a bunch of website listed on at Knoppix's site, so it is unclear why you are being directed to strange sites. That said, for what you have in mind, a Bart's PE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/) or a UBCD4W (http://www.ubcd4win.com/) would be more useful. Both have to be created using a XP cd and exe files from those sites, then burning an iso - (UBCD4Win is Bart PE with some useful additions), but are really useful tools for troubleshooting and repairs.
 
Go here

Download the PC version.

Burn the ISO using DVD Decrypter, just google that, you'll find it easily enough. (right-click ISO file once downloaded, if you've installed Decrypter, it should give you the option to burn using it when you right-click)

Then go here

Scroll down to the section that says 'Partition Recovery'. Read this section very carefully, it's quite simple, looks more difficult than it is. I'm no expert on data recovery. But this worked for me this evening, saving 150 Gigs worth of data. Once I knew, took about 10 mins using this stuff, after hours of searching for a good method. It is probably a good idea to print this page off if you can.

So, once you've done all that, you can boot off the CD you burnt using Decrypter. Just let it do its thing, you have to press 'Enter' a few times throughout boot, but eventually you land up at a prompt. Type 'testdisk', have your printed off instructions at hand and go for it.

Obviously, everything I recovered is now backed up. But what actually caused this, was me having cloned a 7 Gig installation from a 54 Gig disk to a 55 Gig primary partition on a new 320 Gigger. This left the another 243 Gig partition on the new disk that wasn't there originally. I hadn't yet bothered to slipstream an XP SP2 installation disk, and stupidly threw in the original bootable (no SP) when I wanted to reinstall XP, this installation was 12 months old and cluttered with crap. This severely screwed up the partition table and above method rescued it, even though I'd actually told it to do nothing. When it came to 'which partition would you like to install Windows to', it only showed 130 or so Gigs of unallocated space, the old limitation prior to SP2. I banged my head on the desk, I shoulda known this. Asked me to format, obvious answer 'no', coz the data is still there somewhere. Format it and it becomes even harder to retrieve.

I feel very lucky tonight. Ironic with all the argument about Linux, that is was a Linux-based rescue CD enabled me to 'see' the original partitions and just change the boot partition back to 'active' and correct the partition table. If you asked me right now what my opinion of anything to do with Linux is, I'd have to say I love Linux.

😀
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top