hi folks,

my main gaming platform (win xp sp2) is giving me problems and i might have to reinstall *roll eyes*. however, i need to go into the hdd to recover some of my config files etc.

is there a good livecd which would help me do this? i tried DSL (did not discover my mouse -- and i tried both ps2 and usb), knoppix and xubuntu (both can't seem to read my ntfs hdd?).

i am fine with not using X to do all of this, as long as i can copy the files to a usb memory stick.

any suggestions will be much appreciated!

My vote would go to Knoppix. It has very good hardware detection, and a very good web site with documentation and help. I like version 3.9, there is newer, but I had problems with udev on the latest version.

I have saved several XP systems using Knoppix. God knows, they needed it.

Yep.., Knoppix, or maybe Mepis. I've also used Knoppix as a rescue CD on a hosed XP system. Worked well enough to let me get important files backed up. After that, I lost interest trying to"fix" it, and Format C:/s it was..

IGF

Knoppix is good for detecting different hardware, but I find I'm liking Slax a bit better. Since it's a bit more stripped down it boots and runs a lot faster (I'd say it's comparable to my ubuntu hard drive install). If all you need is to save some configuration files all the bells and whistles in knoppix are probably not useful.

This is my favourite when I fall into problems...
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page
No GUI, but very well documented
Ciao

it just so happens i have a copy of knoppix livecd sitting around. question is: how do i access my harddrive when i log in?

I think Ubuntu is fabulous. It detects hardware and enables network connections so you can shoot files off to another remote system. This is really handy.

Once it boots up cd to the root directory:
cd /

Create a mount point like hd:
mkdir hd

Mount the drive with something like:
mount /dev/hda1 /hd

Normally the partition type is detected automatically but if it's not then the above command is something like:
mount -t reiserfs /dev/hda1 /hd

Of course if you have want to mount a different partition it's just:
mount /dev/hda2 /hd

Once a mount point is used you have to either create a new one or free up the old one before making another mount:
umount /dev/hda1
This unmounts your hda1 partition from hd if you did what I decribed above.

Another issue you can run into with distros like Ubuntu is that it requires sudo because there are no root logins. Just do a:
sudo su -

This will give you the necessary access to get your business done

Let us know if you need more help.

i also vote for slax. like mcmillan says, it boots a lot faster. and it boots to a command prompt, too, no waiting for bloaty X to load (the last version i tried, at least).

So do I. I only use Slackware, however, when it comes to hardware detection I've ended up using Ubuntu because I don't want to figure out how to make things work in Slackware when I only want to get the files out. It's faster to wait for slow Ubuntu, then to figure out the hardware problem for yourself. If I'm not even going to keep the system I don't care to trouble shoot. Remember it's just recovery.

I would suggest knoppix.