[Kitty83]

Hello I'm new to forums, hoping someone can help...

The other day my laptop (Toshiba equium) crashed for no apparent reason and now it won't start up at all. Choosing safe mode didn't work, all it will do is go to windows loading screen for a couple of seconds and then it restarts again.

Boyfriend looked at it for me and we downloaded this file KNOPPIX_V5.1.1CD-2007-01-04-EN.iso on another computer (hopefully that means something to someone!) and then saved it on a CD-R disk. Changed boot sequence on laptop so it would boot from CD before hard drive, put the CD in and restarted and nothing! Its still just doing the exact same thing. Can hear the CD drive making noises but nothing is happening.

Hope someone can help as I need to get to files on my laptop, oh my god I hate computers!!

Kitty x

[cheesewheels99]

mabye ur harddrive is broken

[Carbon]

You can't just burn the file - you need to burn it as an image in order to boot off it.

[zerocool]

Was the cd burn as a boot cd, if it wasn't then when the bios looks for a boot record it will not find one on the cd and then move onto the next in the boot sequence which is the hard drive and then your stuck in the same loop as you have with your laptop at the moment. Do you know that Knoppix is a version of linux and not windows (just incase you thought your computer would be back to normal)

[Kitty83]

Thanks guys,

So it looks as though I haven't made the CD right, I just dragged the file into the CD folder and copied as you would normally. If someone could tell me the right way of doing it then that would be great. Everything I've read suggests that it should work, it's so fustrating!

Kitty

[philthomas]

Before spending too much time with the KNOPPIX disk, this will not restore Windows for you, (only let you recover some data if you're lucky). More important, have you got the Windows Installation Disk ? or a Recovery Disk as supplied with the Laptop ?.

Le t us know which .... if it's a Recovery Disk, there may be an option for a Non Destructive Recovery, which will keep your data intact.

Also is this an XP or Vista setup ?

If you or your b/f know what you are doing and want to burn the KNOPPIX disk properly, grab a copy of IMGBurn (freeware) from here : http://www.imgburn.com/ or if you have Nero installed you can just open the iso file in Nero.

[Kitty83]

Hi Phil,
well we got knoppix to run by saving the file onto a new CDR using a programme called ISOrecorder. The next step was to go onto root shell type "cfdisk" and enter. This was meant to give us a list of all the partitions and we were going to fix the ones where the filesystem is NTFS. However, the only partition that came up was sda1. So we exited cfdisk, then went back into shell and typed "ntfsfix /dev/sda1" in the hope it might do something. Shut down knoppix and restarted laptop with out CD but still same old story.

Think we have reached the limit of what we can do now, I sort of understood it up to this point but its getting too technical now and more importantly extremely boring.

Laptop has Windows XP, don't think I've got a windows disk but I've got recovery disk but was reluctant to use it as bf said it might mean losing data. Is it possible to use Knoppix to save files (i.e. photos and word docs) onto memory stick or cds before I try recovery disk? Then if I do lose the data on laptop I've backed it up?

[philthomas]

To be honest my experience with KNOPPIX and Linux is limited, so I am not the best person to advise you on this .... maybe someone else on here will post or advise.

It might be worth starting up the Recovery disk to see if a Non Destructibe Recovery Option exists though, if it does that will be an easy route. Just be careful not to click on anything that might start a full Recovery, if unsure back out.

There is another way of salvaging your data and that would be to remove the HDD from the Laptop and put it in a USB External Enclosure. This can then be connected to another system to pull of data/files.

HTH

[philthomas]

I should also of said, if you had an original XP Disk, you may be able to carry out a System Repair.

[Carbon]

Try booting with an XP CD and use mbrfix at the recovery console.