Hello, I'm new to Linux but am trying out a few distro's

I have a problem with a separate RAID 5 box thats connected to a DELL PC via an Adaptec SCSI card. Under windows XP the OS gives errors and will not run unless the RAID box is disconnected.

I tried running with a Ubuntu 6.10 live CD and managed to find the RAID box and mount it, very good. Problem was it would not give access to the data, permissions issue. Tried a few things with that but nothing worked.

Tried Ubuntu 7.10 live CD, this did not find the RAID box at all!

Tried Knoppix 5.1.1 no RAID box

Tried Knoppix 5.0.1, finds RAID box, mounts it on the desktop and gives full access to the data, fantastic...

Sorry for the long post before getting to the question...

Any ideas as to why only the rather old version of Knoppix was able to find the RAID 5 box and give access with no fuss?

Incidentally this is the second occasion when one of these RAID 5 boxes has stopped Windows from working. Normally have to reformat the array and start again, thanks to Linux I've managed to save the data first :-)

probably an old raid card. If knoppix came with a driver for every device that was ever supported by linux, it would be HUGE. I'm guessing that they simply removed the driver for that card & replaced it with the newer one. Same goes for Ubuntu.

Sounds like you're done with this issue though, yes? Or are you trying to install linux & use this device in the future? If the latter, then I'm sure you can find the driver on the adaptec website & get it installed.

As far as permissions issues, it's likely that only root or sudoer could access the data, i.e.

sudo su
cd /path/to/drive

Thanks for the quick reply, good point I'll take a look at drivers.
Yes the Knoppix 5.0.1 is currently shifting 1.2Tb of data so should be done by Mon!