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The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: X-ray on August 01, 2005, 06:08:03 PM
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I have a friend's laptop here. It is an Acer Travelmate (TM222X). She has attempted to install another OS on it: the sticker on the back says it came with XP and she tried to install 98 on it. Anyway it now boots straight to a 98 setup wizard and the only other option is to shutdown if the details are not entered. Now I can only assume that the installation cannot continue because she doesn't have the original disk. That's why the machine doesn't boot anymore.
That's not my problem and I am not going to try to fix it but what I would like to do is try to get her photos off the hard-disk and backed up onto a CD so she can reinstall the XP. What I thought of doing is taking the drive out of the laptop and connecting it as a slave to my desktop. Is this feasible? Are there any pitfalls? I know I have to jumper the drive as slave, but what else do I need to do?
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Moving the drive is probably the best thing to do. You'll need to buy a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter to connect it to your desktop.
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X-ray wrote:
What I thought of doing is taking the drive out of the laptop and connecting it as a slave to my desktop. Is this feasible? Are there any pitfalls? I know I have to jumper the drive as slave, but what else do I need to do?
I can't see why it wouldn't work in theory. I just hope the drive was partitioned and she kept her data separate from the OS partition.
'Cos I dunno what the Win98 would have done to it, apart from change the filesystem from NTFS to FAT32 ( and probably formatted it along the way ??)
Atleast with Win98 being a smaller than XP it shouldn't have overwritten anything except the old XP system files
Anyhoo.. the first thing that you must do, is use something like Norton's Ghost to make a drive image, and if possible try and recover the files from a copy of that image.
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Thanks for fast replies dudes...I will see what I can do but if this 2.5 to 3.5 adapter is pricey, I'll not go much further here. She's on her own then.
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I have just ordered one myself, as I have to do the same myself. Cost me 5 UKP, so not that expensive.
I hope I will be able to salvage the drive using my A4000 though. Hoping I formatted with FAT back then, fingers crossed.
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Get a Knoppix live CD, and a USB Harddrive. Boot the machine with Knoppix, and copy the data from the Machine's internal drive to the USB drive :-)
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yep, yep, yep
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@ Bloodline
You are the mutt's nuts, my good man. I am downloading Knoppix Live as we speak. Should take me 50 minutes at 233kb/s. I already have an external USB/Firewire drive and I'll see what I can do. (I'm absolutely clueless about Linux and Knoppix, so this could be interesting).
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Knoppix looks pretty hot :)
My suggestion was going to be for you to buy an external usb/firewire enclosure (roughly $20 US).. These allow you to create a portable 2.5 laptop drive into a portable drive.. However, I'm all about the free solutions, and if Knoppix will read your files fine, then there's no need to go that route..
I'm going to throw something else out there, though... If she overwrote XP with 98, there's a good chance in order for her to do that she wiped the drive.. I haven't done it lately, lol, but I thought I recalled reading that XP wouldn't let you "downgrade/downrev" to an older OS.. Could be way off, but.. Something to think about.. Especially considering XP generally uses NTFS filing system, which is incompatitable with win9x, I believe....
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@ X-ray
http://db.ilug-bom.org.in/Documentation/knowing-knoppix_2004-12-30.pdf (http://db.ilug-bom.org.in/Documentation/knowing-knoppix_2004-12-30.pdf)
@Rooster
I was thinking the same thing.
Unless, which is a slim chance, the drive had a separate FAT32 data partition.
Perhaps there are recovery tools that could be used anyway?
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X-ray wrote:
@ Bloodline
You are the mutt's nuts, my good man. I am downloading Knoppix Live as we speak. Should take me 50 minutes at 233kb/s. I already have an external USB/Firewire drive and I'll see what I can do. (I'm absolutely clueless about Linux and Knoppix, so this could be interesting).
You'll have no problem with Linux, it boots into a standard Desktop and you'll pick it up in about 4 seconds. I've used Knoppix and my USB drive a few times to save valuble data from dead windows laptops.
But if she's formated the drive, it's probably game over.
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@ Cyberus
Ta for manual :-)
@ Thread
This bird better be hoping and praying.
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Well, I have the Knoppix ISO downloaded and I have burned it to CD. Now...I changed boot order in BIOS to CD first, and the CD boots and I get the Knoppix screen with 'Press enter to boot from CD'. There is quite a bit of CD activity after that but then nothing. Black screen. This happens on my XP desktop with 2gb of RAM, even if I select the option of load all to RAM. Tried the CD on the laptop: same deal. Black screen. I am looking for clues online and in the manual but so far I don't know what the problem is :-?
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X-ray wrote:
Well, I have the Knoppix ISO downloaded and I have burned it to CD. Now...I changed boot order in BIOS to CD first, and the CD boots and I get the Knoppix screen with 'Press enter to boot from CD'. There is quite a bit of CD activity after that but then nothing. Black screen. This happens on my XP desktop with 2gb of RAM, even if I select the option of load all to RAM. Tried the CD on the laptop: same deal. Black screen. I am looking for clues online and in the manual but so far I don't know what the problem is :-?
It does take a while to boot... but you should see the usual *nix console during boot...
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X-ray wrote:
Well, I have the Knoppix ISO downloaded and I have burned it to CD. Now...I changed boot order in BIOS to CD first, and the CD boots and I get the Knoppix screen with 'Press enter to boot from CD'. There is quite a bit of CD activity after that but then nothing. Black screen. This happens on my XP desktop with 2gb of RAM, even if I select the option of load all to RAM. Tried the CD on the laptop: same deal. Black screen. I am looking for clues online and in the manual but so far I don't know what the problem is :-?
I've had the same problem with the last couple of Knoppix versions on more than one machine... maybe try an older version if you can find one.
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Okay I tried vga=normal and I was treated to a nice error message in the background: crc error.
Burned another CD, tried that, same result on both machines.
The frikken downloaded ISO must be corrupt...or am I thick?
Trying another one, I'll look for older version just in case.
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You could also try typing "failsafe" (without the quotes) at the boot: command prompt and see how you go.
Trooper
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The plot thickens. I downloaded another ISO image of Knoppix, version 3.8, from a different site. I burned that ISO and I have the same problem. CRC error during unpacking. I can't see why. I have used three different blank CDs (my last three in fact) for this and Nero has been quite reliable. I don't get it. If somebody can post a link to a known working download, I'd appreciate it. I'll get more blanks and try again tomorrow.
Any idea why else I could get crc errors like this?
Edit: @ Trooper
Failsafe doesn't help
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Excuse me while I plod along, but I am learning at the same time here...I used Quickpar and the MD5 file associated with the ISO that I downloaded, and it reports my downloaded ISO image as being 'good'. So either it isn't burned properly on CD or there is a problem with that version and my hardware. Can't find older versions than 3.8.1
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ok, you don't need to use knoppix. there are other live linux distributions based on knoppix. try Feather Linux (http://featherlinux.berlios.de/) (light as feather) or Damn Small Linux (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/). They just don't have the eyecandy X and office apps as knoppix does, but they will do what you need to do.
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I've found that I have better luck burning ISO images with Alcohol 120% instead of Nero. I don't know why this is, but it just is.
Also, I've had problems booting Knoppix on some machines and found instead that Dynebolic (http://www.dynebolic.org/) would do the trick.
Hope this helps.
-AmigaEd
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I hope I will be able to salvage the drive using my A4000 though. Hoping I formatted with FAT back then, fingers crossed.
I hadn't thought of doing that. Instead of looking for an undeleter program for a windows box, could I connect the hard drive (100+ gigs) to my Amiga and use Disksalv on it? I think it's formatted NTFS.
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Disksalv and NTFS or FFS? :inquisitive: I think not, Disksalv does FFS only. Even PFS or SFS are a no-no.
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Disksalv does FFS only.
I remember being able to do whatever kind you had a driver (probably wrong term) for. At least, if I had a Cross DOSed disk in (IBM type), it would show up on the list. And, I don't remember not being able to salv any particular type of format.
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Hmm, I'm starting to doubt now..
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@ Countzero
I tried Featherlinux (I have a few 150mb 8cm CDs that I usually use for my camera).
It works in that it loads and I could access the internet and use all the programs. That gives me a bit of confidence in my ISO burning process. However I can't access the Windows drives - is it possible that you aren't allowed to access them with Featherlinux?
@ Amiga Ed
When I have more full size blanks I will try dynebolic. I have downloaded the ISO and checked with the MD5 file, it is 100%.
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it doesn't mount the windows partitions for you, so you have to mount them manually. first locate a suitable place to mount under /mnt (maybe there is /mnt/win if not you can make a /mnt/win with mkdir command). then use "mount windows-partition mount-location". your windows partition should be /dev/hdXY where X is the letter of your drive (a for master on primary ide channel, b for slave on primary ide channel, c for master on secondary ide channel, d for slave on secondary ide channel) and Y is the partition number. you can see the partitions on your drive with the cfdisk command (be carefully with it though) for example if you enter
cfdisk /dev/hda you'll see the partitions on your master drive, note the number of the windows partition, then use mount command to mount it mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/win
just be careful when you quit cfdisk with the quit command, and not the write command, or you may change the partition table.
http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man8/mount.8.html
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Hi,
I think you should process this way:
1) Get an usb drive (hard disk or flash disk)
optional: have a big, strong cofee near you !!
2) download bart's pebuilder, link here:
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
3) Get an SP1 XP CD (no key needed)
4) Make a bootable ISO with PEBuilder, burn it on a CD
5) plug in your usb device
6) boot on the PEbuilder CD
7) Recover your data !
one other way:
2) plug in your usb drive
3) boot on XP CD
4) select "repair" then select "recovery console" (some words may not be the exact ones: i translate it from french)
5) You'll have a sort of dos prompt
6) recover your data
warn: this is a "sort" of dos prompt, not exactly a dos, very sensible with wildcards (*.*,??)
and now you can pray !!, good luck !
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I'd forget about connecting it to Amiga, it would be much better to connect it to winxp and use some uneraser (there are tons of them but almost none are free, 'Restoration' is the free one but notsogood) of course, be very carefull not to write anything on it.
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Hi,
A few others to look at are -
RIP Linux (RIP = recovery is possible) - has support for NTFS, FAT, FAT32, etc: http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip
SystemRescueCD - also has support for NTFS and FAT, as well as USB drives: http://www.sysresccd.org
BG-Rescue Linux (only 2Mb!) - minimal Linux system with useful tools: http://omnibus.uni-freiburg.de/~giannone/rescue/current
Although SystemRescueCD is old, I'd be inclined to use this to start with as you can boot from the CD, plug in a USB key/drive, then use the included "PartImage" to make a copy of the hard drive partition where you can then transfer it elsewhere to attempt data recovery.
Given you've stated that the laptop now boots into part of Windows 98's setup, that means the drive is now FAT or FAT32, so if the drive has accidentally been reformatted from NTFS, the free tools may not be able to salvage anything...
As Orange states above, I'd also avoid anything at this stage that makes any changes to the hard drive's configuration or data content.
It might also be worth taking a look at commercial data recovery applications (e.g. http://diskinternals.com/ntfs-recovery) but I don't know how successful these are.
Ultimately, and depending on the value of the data / photos, etc, you will probably be able to send the drive off to a data recovery specialist but expect to pay lots if you do.
Good luck!
- Ali
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@X-RAY
Here's the 2.5" TO 3.5" IDE hard disk adapter: http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=68
It will work on the PC too.
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http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41993&item=5795136122&rd=1 (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41993&item=5795136122&rd=1)
Loads of them on eBay, with a start price of a penny
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@ All
I tried messing about with manual mounting on Featherlinux and I got permission denied. Basically I gotta know my limitations, and I am really not the one to be trying to manually mount stuff via Linux (which I don't know from a bar of soap) on a strange laptop (which I do know from a bar of soap, but cannot comment much further ;-))
So I tried Dyne:bolic and I found out a few things about this bird's laptop.
Firstly it hasn't been wiped, in fact I think everything is still there. All the pictures and documents are in the My Documents folder within her user folder. Secondly there are some programs like Photoshop and a few printer utilities in the Programs folder, so it looks promising that all the files are there. I mean, it is spartan compared to what I expected to find, but maybe she has a spartan binary lifestyle.
Next step: see if my external USB drive is recognised -----> Yes. Okay, that's good but now there is a problem. The laptop drive is NTFS (one partition) and my external USB drive is also NTFS. So no write with Dyne:bolic is possible. I can't change the external drive because it is an 80gb drive with about 70gb of encrypted folders on it (these are root encrypted and DESLock doesn't let you copy or move those otherwise I could dump them on my desktop SATA raid pair, which still has about 340gb free). I would have to decrypt it all and save it over and then reformat to FAT32..nah not going to.
So, I am stuck with NTFS. I tried SystemRescueCD and it loads successfully into a console...no good for me because I'll need a gui to select files to copy. I don't even know where they all are: I am going to be browsing around like a schoolkid in a library.
So, I am very close to helping this poor woman out, but I am now in search of an NTFS-writable gui that boots from CD. I'm trying some of the other suggestions...I can't write the RIP .bin so I am looking for alternatives.
Thanks for the great advice dudes, I am learning something here. I have kept that little Feather Linux CD because it so cool...who would have thought you could boot off a small CD and go online, easy as that?
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I aways have a FAT32 partition on my drives as NTFS is totally unportable.
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AmigaEd wrote:
I've found that I have better luck burning ISO images with Alcohol 120% instead of Nero. I don't know why this is, but it just is.
Also, try burning with lower speeds, 2x or something, older cd-drives dont like high-speed burned cd's...
just my 2c... good luck.
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If NTFS is a no go then all I can do is give the laptop back with the Dyne:bolic CD and tell the girl to get a 1gb USB pendrive and shuttle the files to another computer. If she wants the files badly enough she will have to do it, otherwise it is end of the line for this recovery.
Edit: I cannot get the drive out of this unit and upon closer inspection of this laptop I think it is best I don't jerk around with taking things out. If something goes wrong, I'll have to pay for it.
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Hmm, just been thinking about your problem, and rather than trying to back stuff up to a USB hard drive or something, wouldn't it be possible to just hook it up with one of your computers via a crossover network cable, or even plug it into a switch, and copy all the files you need to onto your computer and burn them onto a cd or DVD? I'm assuming that if you used FeatherLinux or if you got Knoppix working (I don't know anything about Dyne:bolic), you should be able to get networking going, and you wouldn't have to worry about trying to write to an NTFS partition. Hopefully that's of some help.
EDIT - It appears Dyne:bolic has some sort of network support, so maybe give that a try?
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X-ray wrote:
I tried messing about with manual mounting on Featherlinux and I got permission denied.
ah, you should become root to do that. with the su command. sorry I forgot to tell you. Anyway, if you want to write to a NTFS drive, then feather won't help you. I thought there was some experimental NTFS writing support in the new linux kernel, but it's little bit dangerous to use these stuff before they get stable. maybe you should try that bart's bootable windoze ?
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Also, perhaps if there was support for writing to NTFS partitions with linux, Microsoft would jump on the distro and try to kill it, as NTFS is © Microsoft
:-?
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I wouldn't bother with Linux (as I've tried over a dozen distros myself and didn't like any of them). An external hard drive enclosure is probably your best bet. Trust me, once you get one, you'll use it all the time for backing up your own stuff. :-)
AmigaEd: I've found that I have better luck burning ISO images with Alcohol 120% instead of Nero.
I've heard Nero 6 has a lot of problems with certain burners that Nero 5 didn't have, especially when burning towards the end (outer rim) of the disc.
Cyberus: Also, perhaps if there was support for writing to NTFS partitions with linux, Microsoft would jump on the distro and try to kill it, as NTFS is © Microsoft
NTFS works like a database and writes multiple pieces of data for each access. It's far too complicated (and risky) to reverse-engineer something like that, so I believe the mere technical issues trump the legal issues, anyway.
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@ All
I think I'll stop trying the Linux for now (the pen drive is an option for the girl to consider if nothing else works) and I'll try Countzero's suggestion of Bart's Boot CD. I'm getting the lady's orignal XP CD and I'll see what PE Builder can do.
Thanks for all the help...I have gone far enough with this laptop.
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@X-Ray
Sorry, but I'm too lazy to read all the thread at this point, and judging from your latest answer I take it you haven't tried my option.
As my laptop has just died (power connector broke) I have to salvage the data from the disk as well, so it is pretty much the same we need to do.
I ordered such an adaptor as already linked to in this post, attached the harddrive to my Amiga 4000 IDE controller, booted the computer as usual. Downloaded fat95 from aminet, installed, edited the mountlist as described in the read me file and mounted the device. Well, what do you know? The harddrive popped up in Workbench, so I'm copying data as we speek.
I doubt that you will have any problems accesing the data on the disk, even though you need a password to access it when using a PC. Just copy all files to your Amiga harddrive, burn the needed files and ditch the rest. Just remember to use a file handling program that can handle large names, like Opus 5 can.
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@ DoctorQ
I can't take the laptop drive out, and if I could I would not bring it near my Miggy as it is NTFS. Also the Miggy drives aren't big enough. I would dump it on my PC (has a lot of space). But I'm not removing it, not taking the chance. I guess if it was my data and I was desperate for it, I would try a few more daring things, but it's not my laptop and I'm being cautious.
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Fair enough. Luckyly enough for me I formatted the harddrive as FAT, and since the laptop is the only PC in the house, I figured I could do no harm to the harddrive anyway...
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I think the BartPE CD is the best option. I always use the Reatogo Xpe, which is ready in no time.
Boot from it and copy all your files with the explorer from the broken PC (NTFS or whatever) to an USB-drive. To have this USB-drive get a letter assigned, use the diskmgmt.msc which is already on the CD.