Interesting Problem - File System

[bodhi]

Hey,

A few weeks ago I asked for some advice and duely received some great stuff from you guys.

Friend of mine has a broken iPod with all her photos etc on it, no back up. I managed to crack the iPod open (happily) and bought a little interface circuit board which arrived today that connects the drive and plugs in via USB.

So I plug the drive in to windows 7 and it recognises it, but doesn't read it, it wants to format the drive as it must be the wrong file system. All I want to do is get access to copy the files off the drive.

Tried plugging into my girlfriends Apple Mac and it does the same thing, wants to 'initialise' the drive, which I guess is Apple's speak for formatting it.

Any thoughts on how I can get into the data on the drive to copy it off?

Thanks.

Bodhi

 

[muckshifter]

The Ultimate Boot Disk

 

[bodhi]

How does that Ultimate Boot Disk work Mucks? I don't have a CD drive cause I'm using a netbook at the moment.

If I get the UBD how does it work, can I use it to boot up into some sort of pseudo operating system that will recognise the drive?

Sorry if these questions are a bit dopey.

 

[muckshifter]

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/faq.html

... more reading

 

[Ian]

How does that Ultimate Boot Disk work Mucks? I don't have a CD drive cause I'm using a netbook at the moment.

If I get the UBD how does it work, can I use it to boot up into some sort of pseudo operating system that will recognise the drive?

You can run the UBCD from a USB stick, with the instructions part way down this page:


http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/customize.html

There are quite a few data recovery and file browser applications on the UBCD which can open many drive formats, so hopefully one of those tools can do it

 

[bodhi]

Thanks guys, will have a look and see if I can work it out. A little project for me to do.

 

[floppybootstomp]

If you have a live Linux Distro on a disk or usb stick you could boot into that and see if it recognises the data.

 

[bodhi]

If you have a live Linux Distro on a disk or usb stick you could boot into that and see if it recognises the data.

I have no idea what this even is mate. lol.

Is linux distro something I can download and whack on a USB drive and boot from?

 

[floppybootstomp]

I have no idea what this even is mate. lol.

Is linux distro something I can download and whack on a USB drive and boot from?

Yes you can.

Download Damn Small Linux whack it on a usb stick and boot from it.

You'll find yourself using an operating system residing in the memory and the usb stick.

Within that you should be able to browse to the iPod drive and with a bit of luck see the files.

Not guaranteed but certainly worth a try.

 

[bodhi]

Yes you can.

Download Damn Small Linux whack it on a usb stick and boot from it.

You'll find yourself using an operating system residing in the memory and the usb stick.

Within that you should be able to browse to the iPod drive and with a bit of luck see the files.

Not guaranteed but certainly worth a try.

Thanks mate, will give that a shot tonight and see what happens.

 

[bodhi]

Hey Floppy,

I've tried that link you posted, and have googled DSL and cannot find a working link to download it from. Is it just one file I download, or is there a set number of steps to follow to get it onto a USB drive to boot from?

Again, apologies for 'silly' questions, not done this before.

Thanks.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Not silly questions at all, I've never actually done this myself but I know it can be done.

Unfortunately my newest motherboard is over four years old now and none of them have the option to boot from a usb stick as far as I know so I can't even try it myself.

I've had a preliminary look around and it seems likely a CD of the distro has to be created from the downloadable Linux ISO image, that's booted from and the usb stick is created within that live distro.

But I'm not sure.

Give me time and I'll dig deeper or hopefully somebody more Linux savvy than I will be along to guide you.

In the meantime, did you create that ultimate boot disk?

 

[bodhi]

Not silly questions at all, I've never actually done this myself but I know it can be done.

Unfortunately my newest motherboard is over four years old now and none of them have the option to boot from a usb stick as far as I know so I can't even try it myself.

I've had a preliminary look around and it seems likely a CD of the distro has to be created from the downloadable Linux ISO image, that's booted from and the usb stick is created within that live distro.

But I'm not sure.

Give me time and I'll dig deeper or hopefully somebody more Linux savvy than I will be along to guide you.

In the meantime, did you create that ultimate boot disk?

That would be great if someone could answer with more linux smarts than me. I guess this is a problem that may help a few people in the future also.

I didn't try the ultimate boot disk as again, I really wasn't sure what I was doing. I went to the link Mucks sent and it seemed to have about 50 different files you could download and I had no idea which one it was I needed.

This is all very confusing. I'm beginning to wish when the lady from work said "my ipod is dead and it's got all my photos on it", rather than saying "i'll try and fix it for you" I had just said "oh well, that's a shame".

 

[bodhi]

Alright gentlemen (and ladies),

I have successfully created both an ultimate boot disk on usb and also a damn small linux on usb, both worked and both took me to a version of linux I could use.

Unfortunately there are two problems:
1. I don't know how to use linux really
2. The USB drive I'm trying to get the data from is not recognised.

The second problem may be a by-product of this first one!!

Any suggestions on what to do now, this is pretty much my last chance before I give up trying to help this person from work retrieve her data.

Thanks again.