How to get window data through linux(open suse)
 

Hello....
I forgot my window password and i also have open suse linux installed in my system. Now I want to get my window data. how can I get data. If anyone knows the please help me.

thanks
swati goel

See if your windows partition is mounted somewhere on Suse. Look under the /mnt and /media directories to see if you can find the Windwos files and then you can copy the files over to Suse or burn them to make a backup.

If it's not mounted anywhere, you can create a mount point and mount it yourself. Log in as root and do this:
mkdir /mnt/windows
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows

Just make sure that /dev/hda1 is really the Windows partition, and if not - then change accordingly for your system.
And welcome to LQ!

Thanks...
 

Thanks for ur reply...
but when i use this command mkdir /mnt/windows permission denied error comes...
now what should I do?

This error generally occurs when you are not logged in as root. Do 'su' or 'su -' before running commands suggested by Udi.

Hi Swati,

First use fdisk -l to check whether windows partitions are accessible or not.
You can also check /etc/grub.conf file to check if any password check is there, or if you can just remove the password string at all. You will find that under 'others' section in the same file.
Otherwise you can create a directory and mount the windows partitions, as told by UDI as well, i.e, mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/<ur directory>
But make sure that all these things can be done by root only, so keep this mind.

Cheers,
Kapil

Some of these commands require root access. E.g open a terminal and use the su command to switch to root.

Mons

@ Udi
 

I have mounted as suggested by you. Now there is windows option in /mnt but it is not accessable. There is an error that you dont have permission to access content of folders.

Plz tell me what to do.?

You could log in as root to access the files. Do you want to get the data to save it?
I assume you have no entry in /etc/fstab file for windows to have the windows accessible on re-boot but if you forgot your password for windows, I imagine you will want to save files and re-install??

@ Yancek
 

yes...I want to save and recover data And after that i have to re-install windows.

You have successfully created a directory under /mnt - and mounted Windows to it. Now I guess you are trying to read from it as a regular user and you can't access /mnt/windows... Log in as root again and run this command:

chmod a+r /mnt/windows

This will grant read permissions on /mnt/windows to everyone. I hope than now you can copy the data over (you can use the GUI for that - and even burn the data to a CD).

Note that after you re-install Windows, it will overwrite the MBR (that's the Master Boot Record) and you won't be able to boot Linux any more because the GRUB menu won't show up. So make sure your backed up data is on some external medium like CD or USB stick (don't leave it on the Linux partition because Windows can't read Linux and you won't have access to your backups).

@ Udi
 

Thnaks Udi..
I have change mode to read access. Now windows was accessable but it was empty...so again i mounted using mount /dev/sda/ /mnt/windows.

Now there are some files in windows folder not all the drives...
So please tell me what should i do now..

anyways..Thanks for ur corporation..

Have a look at this document: gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Mounting_Windows_Partitions

It will give you a good general idea of what you are doing here - or what you need to do ;) It's not really specific to Gentoo but rather a good explanation of mounting windows partitions and the common options of doing so.

If you have more than one windows drive (read: partition), you will have to mount each one of them individually in order to show up under linux.

swatigoel1206 - in your mount command you have to specify the drive and partition that your Windows files are on. If you have more than 1 Windows drive then you'll need to know on which drive and which partition your files are on exactly.

/dev/sda represents the first hard disk, and /dev/sda1 represents the first partition on the first hard disk. Most computers have 1 hard disk in them - so the Windows drives are not really additional hard disks, just additional partitions. Your other Windows drive can be /dev/sda5 for example (sda5 is the first LOGICAL partition which is what drive D: typically is - but it is not a universal rule so you have to check what the case is for your computer). If you really do have 2 hard disks in your computer then the Windows drive can be on sdb somewhere (on /dev/sdb1 or /dev/sdb2 or so on...).

If you don't know the partition layout of your disk, you can log in as root and run this command:
fdisk -l /dev/sda

If you need help with reading the output of the above command - post the output here and we'll tell you.

@Udi..
 

Thanks...

@Udi..
 

I got partitions of windows..when i was mounted, contents of that partition exist in windows, I was copying them in pen drive. but these are not pasted in pen drive..
I m not getting why it is so.
I have open suse 11 installed in another system. In that windows partitions are mounted with drives name like C D E...
but in open suse 10.2 in which i m currently using partitions are not mounted with drive name but with content of drives..