meric said:
Many thanks for your response. I would like to try option 2. I have a
desktop with cdrw (and nero) and a usb ext hdd. Just to be sure that I
understand you correctly,
I burnt the knoppix software into a cd.
Then I boot trhe notebook with this cd , which means I have to change
the bios to boot from "D" drive.
Then with the usb ext hdd attached to the notebook,...(I lost you from
here). So can you explain a bit in more details, thanks
OK, good on you for trying! First, you burnt the Knoppix .iso in Nero by
choosing "burn image file" right? You didn't just burn the files to a
data cd? If this is correct, excellent. If not, reburn the .iso as an
image file.
Now set your laptop to boot from the cd drive, which I guess in your
case is "D". Put the Knoppix cd in the drive and start up the machine
with your usb hard drive attached. Be patient and if you did those
things correctly the laptop will boot Knoppix. Let the operating system
load. When it is finished, you'll have an open window in the middle of
the desktop with information about Knoppix. You can just close out of
that. Do that the same way you do in Windows - there's a little "X" in
the upper right-hand corner.
On the desktop you should see several icons. Probably there will be one
for hda1 or hda2. That will be your main hard drive. I'm not sure how
Knoppix will see your usb drive, but there should be an icon for it.
The two main things to remember are 1) the default mouse action is
single-click to open stuff; 2) Knoppix mounts the drives Read Only.
*IMPORTANT*: The reason I don't normally say to use a usb external
*drive* is because Linux cannot write to NTFS partitions. So if your
external drive is formatted NTFS, this is not going to work for you.
You need a FAT32-formatted usb thumbdrive. For instance, I use a
Memorex 1GB thumbdrive to retrieve client data w/no problem.
So, whatever icon is there for your external drive - right-click it
first and then left-click Properties. Now, I'm not running Knoppix so I
can't tell you exactly where to look, but somewhere in the Properties
there is a box for Read Only. You want to clear that box, Apply & OK.
Now you can left-single-click on the icon and the drive will be
Writeable, which is what you want.
Now left-click once on hda1 or whatever icon represents your Windows
partition with your data. Navigate just like you would in Windows. The
Knoppix window manager is KDE and it looks very similar to what you are
used to. Left-click and drag data to your usb drive. When you let go of
the left mouse button, you'll get a context menu (like when you do a
right-click-drag in Windows). Choose "Copy". For goodness' sake, don't
choose "Move". You don't want to do that even in Windows.
Now copy over whatever data you need and go to the button that
corresponds to Windows' Start button and choose shutdown. Follow the
prompts so you can get the Knoppix cd out of the drive.
Malke
