Knoppix CD (as a utility)

[TonyT]

Last weekend I fixed a friend's new Dell system that had XP Home on it. Because a win98 startup disk's fdisk cannot read the NTFS file system and manage it, I ended up using my Knoppix CD (linux) to handle the job.

Here's what I did:

1. set bios to boot from CDROM drive 1st
2. boot using Knoppix CD
3. after linux up and running from the CD, went to command by pressing cntrl-alt-F1
4. ran cfdisk
5. deleted the Dell boot partition on hard drive
6. deleted the primary partition on hard drive
7. created a new primary partition
8. set partition type to FAT32
9. shut down and booted from a 98 startup disk
10. ran fdisk and deleted primary partition
11. made 2 new partitions, a primary active and an extended DOS partition
12. formatted both partitions
13. loaded win2kpro on the primary

Voila! A better OS on a system that now runs like a champ!

Knoppix is now a very handy tool to have, esp in the absense of 2K or XP startup disks. Plus it has loads of other utilitiies that can manage any drive with any OS on it. Part of my toolkit now.

FYI - cfdisk supports about 50 different file system tables!

[Stef]

I'm glad to see that your finally getting a hint of what a proper Linux system can do

Just curious, why did you create a primary Fat32 partition with cfdisk, then later delete it and created a primary and extended Fat32 from the Win98 boot disk?

You could have skipped a few steps by using cfdisk to partition the disk and DOS to format it.

Stef

[TonyT]

Because I'm not too familiar with all the features of cfdisk. And I have a custom win98 startup disk I made that has other utilities on it, including mouse.

Win98 disk also has a help program that launches a mini-dos editor. I rewrote the help file with my own notes and instructions for myself. That way if I forgert a command, I can pull up my notes and then continue.

Also, I had tried to format a disk once in Knoppix and didn't know the commands, so rather than spend time learning them, I used the 98 disk. (made me look better in front of the other guy!)

[FunK]

You can also use Linux to read the NTFS partitions (with the NTFS Driver). That way, if you needed to get anything off the NTFS partion, you could prior to deleting it. You cannot WRITE to the NTFS partition though so don't try to backup files onto the NTFS partition. Just a little FYI in case you need to backup files from a NTFS partition....

[Izzo]

Last weekend I fixed a friend's new Dell system that had XP Home on it. Because a win98 startup disk's fdisk cannot read the NTFS file system and manage it, I ended up using my Knoppix CD (linux) to handle the job.

Here's what I did:

1. set bios to boot from CDROM drive 1st
2. boot using Knoppix CD
3. after linux up and running from the CD, went to command by pressing cntrl-alt-F1
4. ran cfdisk
5. deleted the Dell boot partition on hard drive
6. deleted the primary partition on hard drive
7. created a new primary partition
8. set partition type to FAT32
9. shut down and booted from a 98 startup disk
10. ran fdisk and deleted primary partition
11. made 2 new partitions, a primary active and an extended DOS partition
12. formatted both partitions
13. loaded win2kpro on the primary

Voila! A better OS on a system that now runs like a champ!

Knoppix is now a very handy tool to have, esp in the absense of 2K or XP startup disks. Plus it has loads of other utilitiies that can manage any drive with any OS on it. Part of my toolkit now.

FYI - cfdisk supports about 50 different file system tables!

old post ...sure


but i was just fiddling with Knoppix and thought i'd check other comments ...
way cool stuff

[zooner]

easier way:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/dban ... ror=puzzle

run a 3x full disk wipe. It takes about 6 hours, but does a great job of 'buh-bye' to dell crap.

[mmione]

Yup, Windows died on me once so I used a live installer within Knoppix to download a DVD burning program and I just burnt and backed up my files and reformatted with XP.

[gentlebenus]

I have used knoppix many a times at work to reccover data from BSODs and many other Microshaft katatrophies. This year I have really fell in love with linux and totaly see the light. Not saying that I am abdoning Microsost, but Linux is a far superior operating system. Much more stable and less bugy. I am currently working with Fedora core 3, Mandrake 10.1 and kubuntu ( a Debian distribution).I figure hay why not have a duel boot Windows/Redhat system, when windows craps out I can just boot to redhat and recover everything( as long as the hard dirve is not mechanically malfunctioning).