This is my first post here, and I'm far from being a basic linux user... I'm a

I'm trying to recover some data from an NTFS formatted partition on a piece of junk hard drive.

I've tried using Windows in all of it's many flavors... all two of em. BartPE wasn't able to get the job done either, which is based off of windows anyway... but it has saved a few junk drives in the past.

Then I tried a LiveCD version of SUSE 9.3 Pro. I was able to find and view the data, but not able to move it. I have a demo machine for displaying Ubuntu's version of linux, and have been trying to find my way through the file system to possibly find and retrieve this data. I'm having ZERO luck with that though. Can't seem to find my way around. {LAME}ness.

The problem I've been having with the drive in windows based machines, is as soon as I connect the drive through any interface the system will blue screen. Every windows machine does the same thing, whether it is connected through an external USB or through and internal IDE. They all come up with an error that points towards the partitions filing system, and an error that occurs while loading the generic NTFS based driver. I'm going to go bald young I think... this guy really needs his data and it's stressing the shiza out of me =(.

I'm down to asking for help guys, I've been brought to my knees and humbled by a friggin hard drive. Help.

> I was able to find and view the data, but not able to move it.

A little mysterious statement. Once you are able to view it you can copy it (why move?) And that's it. You are the winner.

If I could've copied it I would have... wouldn't let me transfer any data period unless it was through my flash drive. I couldn't move or copy anything from any of the hard drives. And that was when I was using SUSE 9.3 Live. I figured that was a SUSE Live issue. So I moved on to a version of linux that I could install.

Here I am with Ubuntu, and I can't find the data through it.

what kind of data is it? i agree it seems a little weird that you could see/view it but not move/copy it. what are you using to view it? are all your filesystems NTFS? <ugh> what is it saying? are you getting some sort of permissions error? how big is your flash drive? could you get it on there and then back it up a little at a time to CD or something? even if it took a while at least you would have your data. or is it too much? do you have any network/web storage where you could transfer it?

once you get the data, i say wipe those windows drives clean and install linux on there, with linux filesystems. or else reinstall windoze if you have to, but use fat32.

It's his personal data for his book management software etc. Not a problem to get after I can find it using Ubuntu. Here's the deal, I WAS using SUSE 9.3 and that's when I WAS able to view/browse the data. However, it didn't let me manipulate the data in ANY way whatsoever.

To view it I was using the general file management system in SUSE 9.3 Live. If it would've let me xfer data to my jump I would have. No matter how many loads it would've been, it would've saved me a lot of time. So the answer is still with SUSE 9.3 LIVE I am unable to accomplish what I'm trying to do.

However, please not that I am NOT using SUSE 9.3 anymore because of the non xferable data issue. I'm am trying to find the data using Ubuntu now. However, the filing system is very alien to me here, and I do not know where to find my hard drives etc.

Through device management software in Ubuntu I was able to find the hard drive, so I've confirmed that the system is recognizing it. But I am unable to find the drive through a browser of any kind so that I might be able to manipulate the data.

Any ideas where it might be?

Whilst using a live version you won't be able to copy to the / filesystem as it's all held on the cd/RAM.

You should be able to copy to a redundant (data disk) that isn't doing anything, if not you need to tell us the error message,

the likely reason the drive was shown in SUSE live is because live cds need to have lots more hardware supported, for use in fixing machines etc. The ubuntu system may not support NTFS or just doesn't mount it at boot.

look in /mnt see if there is anything there

sudo fdisk -l
this will show your drives the system can see

if it says no such file

locate fdisk

then ./path_to_fdisk -l

this will show a list of your partitions.
if it shows your NTFS partition create a directory where the drive will be mounted

sudo mkdir /mnt/ntfs

sudo mount /<hd? # from fdisk> /mnt/ntfs

then go to /mnt/ntfs and you should see the files

that should work, although i dont use ubuntu, which i believe uses sudo with no su out of the box (dont like that) if it fails, post which bit didnt work

One more thing about the live version of SUSE, the message I was recieving was along the lines of access denied =( I was able to view the data there though and confirm that it was intact. I was unable to move it or copy it or even delete it. Was simply unable to. It would say something along the lines of "can't access it". And I got the same error no matter what hard drive I was trying to manipulate data on. The only drive that I could manipulate anything on was my jump drive, period.

Once again, I've moved from SUSE 9.3 and the thread was about finding information using Ubuntu. Please post if you have information about where the data would be, or even where the hard drive would be listed under a file manager.

If you have another version of linux that you think may work that is free, feel free to suggest that as well.

Thanks Ethics, I'll try that immediately

ok, I've made the directory, and have been fiddling with the "mount" command. I think I may have mounted it properly, but now it says I do not have the right permissions to view the folder. I can get into /mnt and see that there is a folder named /mnt/ntfs but when I try to access it, it gives me an access denied message based on insufficient priveleges.

Windows/DOS filesystems (NTFS,FAT*) can't handle proper Unix like permissions, so something called umask must be used, which means all files assume a default set of permissions when mounted.

unmount with
sudo umount /mnt/ntfs

remount with
sudo mount /dev/<hda? whatever NTFS is> /mnt/ntfs umask=000

that should work.

of course you can always do it as root i believe (sudo cd /mnt/ntfs?)

Do not write to any of your ntfs files though even if it allows you, bad support for it in Linux, when it's time to reformat, assusming it isn't a windows system partition, reformat as fat

I think we're getting close hehe. When I go to mount with a umask value of 000 it tells me the proper usage of "mount" =P I have unmounted the partition though. So all we gotta do is get it mounted with the proper permissions.

Thanks again, any ideas on how to get this last part done?


hard drive name is hdg2 by the way.

sudo mount /dev/hdg2 /mnt/ntfs umask=000 is what I put in, and it responds with the little tutorial of how to use the command "mount". If I don't put in the umask=000 it will mount the drive, but I can't access it =P

almost finished! w00w00!!

sudo mount -t ntfs -o umask=000 /dev/hdg2 /mnt/ntfs ? (ignore the ? )

Sorry that was my fault, i've only ever mounted it via /etc/fstab whereby adding a line will make it mount at every boot of the system.

Did a bit of testing with the above ,seemed to work for me.

Hope it works

/bow to Ethics

I'd like to send you a christmas card =P Thank you SOOO much.

P.S. it worked

i am having a similar problem, but with EXT disks

linux crashed, won't boot properly, ubuntu (liveCD) copies some data, but not all, sometimes only part of a file copies.

Does knoppix support LVM?

I guess the answer is yes but you have to install the module to get it working.

Notice that access to other partitions (especially other filesystems) always is set to root only by default. Remember that when accessing other filesystems. You'll likely need to be root before you mount the other filesystems.