My computer is screwed, as some of you might know.

I'm using it now, using a Ubuntu Live CD, as some of you will also know.

I don't know how to get to the data on my hard disk. Any help?

Also, to burn a DVD do I just put in the blank, and then follow the screen?

How is your hard drive formatted? NTFS or FAT32?

I have two disks. Each has two partitions.

One partition is FAT32. One partition is NTFS. Two I can't remember.

You might also want to try those "Windows XP Live CDs".

However, there isn't any particular place where you can find them...

Make a directory for the mount:
mkdir /mnt/win

Change hda1 with corresponding hdd, usually the a is the hard drive "id" and the 1 is the partition number so lets say you want to make parition one & two, just create other dirs but instead of hda1, try hda2.

If your filesystem is fat32:
mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/win

If your filesystem is ntfs:
mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/win

Check if it is mounted:
cd /mnt/win
ls -al

to know where your partitions are and how they are named (hdax, hdbx, whatever), you should use fdisk.

With fdisk, I've figured out 3 of my partitions, bu the leftover is this:

code:

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   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

/dev/hda2           12504       14592    16779892+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5           12504       14592    16779861    7  HPFS/NTFS

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Both.  hda2 is probably your FAT32 & hda5 is your NTFS.

hda5

hda2 is an "extended" partition, where you can store many logical partitions (whereas you can only create 4 primary partitions on a drive). thus it's not directly used to store data.

Thanks for your help guys.

I have another problem now.

When I tried to follow nvez's instructions, I wasn't sure what I was doing. I Went to Applications>System Tools>Terminal, and used the commands he gave. I got some error message, so I exited Terminal, and went to Root Terminal. Everything worked then. Now, when I browse to the folders where I've mounted everything, three of them give me an access denied error when I try to view them.



I'm probably using the wrong terminology for a few things becasue I'm just figuring everything out as I go, sorry.

In your case, you should first see if you can log on to the X11 GUI as root.

If not, here are some instructions on remounting the NTFS file systems, so that they are readable to all users:

http://www.linuxforum.com/linux_tutorials/1/1.php

You will, at least, need to launch a root shell to do this.  su and sudo commands may help there, depending how your LiveCD works.

I think it has something to do with the rights you have on these devices.
See the fstab part on the page adeptus gave

I've got that working, but I really need write access. How would I do that? I don't need to create files, just delete and move.

Linux doesn't _really_ support writing to NTFS partitions. If you want to try to, you can use the Linux-NTFS stuff from http://www.linux-ntfs.org/ (Haven't played with it in Ubuntu however)

You should be able to write to your FAT32 partition perfectly fine.

Yeah, I can write to my FAT32 partition fine.

I normally use Windows, but Windows screwed up, The only way I can boot this computer is using a Ubuntu Live CD. I have 18 GiB of video which I want to burn then delete, to make room for a fresh installation of Windows. That video is on a NTFS partition.

quote:

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Originally posted by Chris Boulton
Linux doesn't _really_ support writing to NTFS partitions. If you want to try to, you can use the Linux-NTFS stuff from http://www.linux-ntfs.org/ (Haven't played with it in Ubuntu however)

You should be able to write to your FAT32 partition perfectly fine

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Well I'm using version 5.04, which is fairly old (April 2005). How do I find out the kernel version?

grep it? go to Terminal an do this, it'll tell u how to grep it..  man grep ( space between man an grep ) or this ( # uname -r )

quote:

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Originally posted by Animal
grep it? go to Terminal an do this, it'll tell u how to grep it..  man grep ( space between man an grep ) or this ( # uname -r )

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quote:

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Originally posted by rav0
That's really complex.

What I want to do right now: get read/write NTFS access.

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Originally posted by Ddunk
What's complex about it?

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borrow a HDD from a PC shop or something an transfer files over to that , that you need an then format your HDD an reinstall windows

Yeah, but that's all things that I can't do myself, at home.

next best thing/way is to ring a comp shop an get them to do it

As I said earlier, you could try using one of these "Live CDs"
They can usually access NTFS/FAT32 partions and they usually have CD/DVD burning tools

what about trying a Knoppix LiveCD ?

quote:

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Originally posted by rav0
I normally use Windows, but Windows screwed up, The only way I can boot this computer is using a Ubuntu Live CD. I have 18 GiB of video which I want to burn then delete, to make room for a fresh installation of Windows. That video is on a NTFS partition.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Animal
the latest kernels 2.6.15 or was it 2.6.14 does have NTFS support. as far as i know of it just wont support 64bit yet

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Originally posted by Mike
As I said earlier, you could try using one of these "Live CDs"
They can usually access NTFS/FAT32 partions and they usually have CD/DVD burning tools

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quote:

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Originally posted by Animal
what about trying a Knoppix LiveCD ?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Chris Boulton
And yet another stupid suggestion?

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quote:

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Originally posted by rav0
I normally use Windows, but Windows screwed up, The only way I can boot this computer is using a Ubuntu Live CD. I have 18 GiB of video which I want to burn then delete, to make room for a fresh installation of Windows.

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Windows wouldn't load the Welcome Screen. I tried reinstalling Windows, but Windows Setup would freeze when there were "34 minutes remaining".

The Windows partition would mount under Linux, but as read only. Even when I mounted it as read/write, it would be read only.

Now I'm using miniPE. I've made room for a new installation, and I'm ready to install, but I'd like to see if anybody can help me with my new question, about how Windows Setup detects existing Windows installations.