mounting your windows partition

tijo.thomas · 02-20-2006, 03:24 AM

Hi,

Here, I have a problem in booting into my Windows machine. And so I need to do a cold copy of some of the systems files from it. Can I do this using a knoppix CD? Can somebody help me in finding out the steps?

How do I mount an NTFS filesystem from knoppix or any rescue CD?

--Tijo

spooon · 02-20-2006, 03:35 AM

Yes. Knoppix autodetects the filesystems at boot and puts the appropriate entries in /etc/fstab. You either have to double-click on the appropriate drive icon that shows up on the desktop, or do "mount /dev/hda1" (or whatever partition it is) on the command line.

tijo.thomas · 02-20-2006, 03:37 AM

I tried the following:
mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /back

It gave me the following error message as "wrong fstype". Any idea???

elliott678 · 02-20-2006, 05:32 AM

If it is a premade system that came with Windows installed it may have a hidden recovery partition at hda1.

Also are you sure it is NTFS? My new laptop had XP installed on Fat32.

Try "fdisk -l /dev/hda" it will tell you if there is a hidden partition.

tijo.thomas · 02-21-2006, 12:36 AM

Its an NTFS filesystem. I need to make a copy of my system32 folder in cold mode. i.e the windows os should not be running...can i do this with knoppix?? Can I know the detailed steps for mounting this partition..

Bacause it failed to mount NTFS filesystem partition..Can somebody tell me the exact cmd to execute the mount..???

Really Appreciate your help

spooon · 02-21-2006, 12:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tijo.thomas

Its an NTFS filesystem. I need to make a copy of my system32 folder in cold mode. i.e the windows os should not be running...can i do this with knoppix??

Yes

When you're in Knoppix, can you tell us what it says in /etc/fstab?

nguyennh · 02-21-2006, 03:20 AM

I wonder what is your Linux distribution and your kernel version ? Does it support NTFS ? If I am not mistake , RedHat9 and FC1 backward NOT support NTFS unless you re-compile kernel (although after that , it only gives you read permission on NTFS partition) .
The best way to overcome this is recompile your kernel and select NTFS support .

Hope it helps you .

tijo.thomas · 02-21-2006, 11:58 PM

I dont have RH installed on it. Its only a Windows machine. And the source which I am trying to boot is knoppix which has a linux kernel. It does have the NTFS support..do u know the exact command to mount a Windows partition (NTFS)??

tijo.thomas · 02-22-2006, 12:02 AM

Following are the steps I did..

Booted the Windows system with knoppix.
In the shell prompt,
"mkdir /win"
"mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /win"

Am I right??? Please let me know..

nguyennh · 02-22-2006, 12:26 AM

You should check is /dev/hda1 a NTFS partition ?

haertig · 02-22-2006, 08:49 AM

Knoppix should create an column of icons down the left side of your desktop, one for each partition it finds. Is it not doing this? If there's an icon you can just double click on it to open it for reading (but not for writing - it's mounted readonly by default).

If you don't have those icons, I'd start out my debugging by:

(1) Opening a terminal window in Knoppix
(2) Run "su"
(3) Run "fdisk -l" (that's an "ell", not a "one")
(4) Run "cat /etc/fstab"

Report back here with the output generated by fdisk and cat. Most important would be the data from fdisk. It sounds like /dev/hda1 is NOT an ntfs partition, despite your assurances otherwise, or possibly a corrupted one. fdisk output would help. Several people trying to help you have asked for this data.