My girlfriends laptop crashed so I took her ntfs hdd out and connected it to my linux desktop. It shows up in setup but I can't figure out how to mount it whilst in linux so I can back it up.

first, using fdisk to display all the partitions, and then mount the partitions one by one:

mkdir /mnt/sdb1
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1
mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt/sdb2

Note: some versions of linux releases may not support ntfs well, and you might need to compile it as an kernel module and load it yourself.

Good luck - jc

Hello,

if your linux cannot handle ntfs, I'd recommend to boot your Computer with a slax-live-CD. Slax handles windows-partitions very well and will mount all detected devices while booting. You'll only have to boot slax in text-mode, this is very fast.

Markus

Did the laptop die, or the hard drive?? If the drive is dead, you obviously won't be able to mount it.

You don't say what version/distro of Linux you're using, but most Linux distros these days, can mount Windows partitions in at least read-only mode. The ntfs-3g stuff is usually present, and can be loaded with a 'modprobe' command, if it isn't already. Read the man page for mount, but "mount -t ntfs <device name> <mount point>", like "mount -t ntfs /dev/sdc1 /media". Make sure the mount point directory is there, and you may have to be root to issue that command.

Make sure you get the right /dev id. Disconnect the windows drive and boot. Do an 'ls /dev/sd*' (could also be hd*, depending on your distro), and see what's there. Shutdown, plug in the Windows drive, and boot up again, and repeat the ls command. You should see the new devices, each one should have an entry...if you've got two partitions, and it's the second drive, it'll probably show up as /dev/sdb1 and /dev/sdb1.

Another cheap thing to try, is to get a USB external enclosure for the drive. They're pretty cheap (probably about $25 or so), and make the laptop drive an external, USB/Firewire device. Just plug it in, and it should automount, just like any other USB flash drive.