I had my primary XP drive fail. Purchased a second PC and am running XP SP3 - went to install my 2nd and 3rd drives, they were seen in BIOS but not by XP. Loaded Knoppix 5.1 Live to do a recovery of the 2 drives so I can save the data and reformat for a fresh install. In XP they both came up as "Unallocated" in Comp. Management - they are data drives not boot drives. So now in Knoppix they show up, but I am not able to mount the 2 data drives. I really would like to recover this data and reformat. This is my first exposure to Knoppix - seems pretty good so far but I don't know where to go from here. HELP ! ! ! Thanks, Bill

Connect to XP PC & take ownership of the files. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

The "unallocated" message sounds like it is saying either they are unformatted or the wrong format. I have never had this happen before - but these were formatted on XP home SP2 with a P3 processor and now they are trying to run under XP Pro SP3 with AMD 3200. The file sharing didn't make a difference. I think the only way I have a chance to save this data is using Knoppix. Thanks

If your system BIOS 'sees' all of the drives connected to your computer, then I feel fairly safe in believing they are all correctly physically connected. Boot your computer from the Knoppix disk. The drives do not have to be mounted for you to be able to check them (and it is better that they not be mounted for the following proceedures). After Knoppix has booted, run gparted to check that the file system(s) on the drive(s) are accessible. Gparted will usually report any corruption of a partition or a file system. If you receive no error messages and Gparted displays the partition(s) on each drive, check each partitions flag status. Right click (if you are right handed) each partition on each drive, then select [b]check flags[/b] in the resulting pop-up menu. If the [b]boot[/b] item has a check mark, clear it to remove the boot flag. If the hidden flag is set, clear it as well. If gparted reported errors and after fixing them your files are not recovered, or if the partitions on the two drives appear to be empty, you may be able to recover your files with testdisk (an open source console application developed expressly for the purpose of recovering lost partitions, directories, and files). I do not know if Knoppix includes gparted or testdisk because I use the System Rescue CD (an other Linux based bootable Live! diak) for such emergencies. Testdisk requires a console or terminal window with at lease 25 lines or it will exit with an error. It is menu driven and quite easy to work with. The arrow keys on the key board are used to navigate. The selected choice will appear in reversed color with an explanation at the bottom of the display area. Testdisk is the most powerfull (and easiest to use) data recovery tool I have ever worked with. See its description on the System Rescue CD WEB site (linked above) for its capabilities. HTH, Ernie Registered Linux User 247790

HTH - Great Call on TestDisk - wonderful program and so far it has recovered over 1000 of my jpeg's. Last night I purchased a recovery program (out of frustration and desperation) called ZAR for $29.99 - it worked great except no photo recovery. Thanks so much for your tip. Time to start burning some backup DVD's. - Wildman