Hello,

I hope this is the right forum to get some urgent help as I'm quite PC idiot. Please bear with me as I do my best to explain what the problem is and what happened, etc. Thanks!

This is my first time, using Knoppix 3.8.1 CD to reboot in PC as the Windows XP was corrupted. A friend's husband said I can use the CD to reboot and get access to the files I need to retrieve (before reformatting the C drive, erasing everything). However, from the first time I turned on the PC, it was showing the Knoppix processing info and while I didn't know if I should press "Enter" or type something or just leave it alone as it was processing. Anyway, at the end, as it seemed to be about to be finished processing, it suddenly popped up a floating error sign (with the black background) saying, "Input Not Supported". I was puzzled 'cuz I had no idea what the heck that means. I double checked the plugs of keyboard and mouse and PC and they were plugged properly. I turned it off and turned back on again. After repeating the steps of processing the info, the error sign came up again.

I don't know what to do about it 'cuz unfortunately, my friend's husband has become unavailable indefinitely to resolve this. And I desperately need the help to resolve this so I can access to my important files (they're too important to lose/to be erased).

Originally, my Windows XP was corrupted (ie, repeatedly rebooting issue, never gotten to the desktop again) and my friend's husband has to use his work's extensive server to retrieve some files via Knoppix. Since he wasn't sure what else to retrieve, he decided to use the Knoppix 3.8.1 for me to access to other files later on. Due to some circumstances, I didn't get to that until months later (which is now).

I wanted to be clear that the other files not yet retrieved are very important, cannot be lost or erased (such as suggesting to re-formatted the C drive) and from what I understand, I was told that I should not have any problems with accessing to the files via Knoppix (and the friend's husband did used the Knoppix to retrieve my first batch of files anyway).

Please advise and I truly appreciate your help!

Many thanks in advance!

I don't know what the problem is, but I do have some general comments that might help.

Different versions of Knoppix might differ slightly in booting, but I would expect what I say to be close enough to your version that you can figure things out.

When the CD first boots you are probably presented with a picture with boot: at the bottom of the screen. If you want to boot w/o changing anything from the default, you may either press ENTER at this point or you may wait for it to time out. In either case, after the kernel loads and starts executing you will see messages printed out on the screen as Knoppix boots. If all goes well you will eventually be presented with a graphical desktop with a browser loaded with a page with information about using Knoppix. I just booted Knoppix 5.1 and browser shows the lines "KNOPPIX INFO", "KNOPPIX 5.1" and a number of links for different languages. Clicking EN brings up the information in English.

It was not clear to me whether this version of Knoppix was successfully booted on this particular computer in the past. If so, unless a hardware failure is preventing it, then, of course, you should be able to do it again. But if you think back to that boot: prompt, that exists to allow the user to provide special parameters. Sometimes this is necessary to be able to boot particular hardware. (In most cases, though, the default works fine.) So if this has worked before on this machine, the only thing I can think of is you either have hardware problems or else some special parameters are required for your machine. If this version of Knoppix has not been used with this machine before, then I notice that your version of Knoppix is rather old; you might want to start by getting a recent version.

If you think you need special boot parameters and you don't have access to somebody who has used Knoppix with this machine, you might try Googling on the term knoppix, the phrase boot parameters and a phrase describing your machine. You may find somebody else who has figured out which parameters are need.

I am sorry I can't give you more specific info about your problem. I hope my explanation makes the whole thing a little less mysterious and allows you to figure out what you need to do.


EDIT: It is my belief that if you can get Knoppix to boot on your machine then you will be able to recover your files with it if the Windows partition is not corrupted. However, depending on how valuable these files are to you, you might want to consider paying for professional data recovery. I know such services are offered, but I don't know any details. If you decide to go that route, make sure you find somebody reputable. (That might be the sort of thing for which you can find somebody who is bonded.)

Is probably coming from your monitor which doesn't like the refresh rate knoppix has chosen for it.

You see the normal boot messages OK, then when it starts the GUI, it does it at the wrong rates for your monitor, so the monitor goes black, and posts its own error message.

Your PC is probably happily running knoppix, but you can't see it.

Some suggestions:

- Some versions of knoppix offer different display resolutions at the first boot screen - read the options presented to you (Eg "Press F1 for HELP, F2 for more options...") and see if there is another, simpler resolution it'll let you boot to (there often is is you look for it).

Because knoppix is a "live CD", and does not use your HDD unless explicitly told to, it's OK just to turn off the computer and start again if you get in a muddle at this stage. (It ISN'T OK to do this with a full install of linux, but you are not doing that, just trying to rescue your files from windows).

- Try booting with a different monitor connected (beg & borrow one, perhaps they can have yours in the meantime).

- Try another "live CD" distro eg Kubuntu 8.04 (although knoppix is legendary for correct hardware identification)

At the knoppix boot screen, type in 'knoppix 2', this will force text mode, which is much more likely to be able to be displayed on your monitor.