Accessing windows partition through debian etch

Cédric Lucantis wrote:

Le dimanche 1 avril 2007 12:55, andy a écrit :

Hi all

I've run into a problem: the win98 partition on my wife's machine seems
fried with a very unhelpful error message. I can access it in safe mode
which is not very helpful because I want to back up the info from there
onto a CD and safe mode doesn't recognise the cd-drive (!). So, my next
option is to reach across the Debian/windows divide and bring the
directories needed into the Debian partition. I used to be able to do
this kind of thing using Slackware and with root permissions could
access the windows partition quite readily. However, Debian just isn't
picking up anything at all to do with the windows partition so I can't
access it from within Deb.

Is there a way I can do this, because if I run the windows setup (like
the error message on windows is telling me to do) it'll toast the
windows and the Debian partitions and lose everything.

Any thoughts/help/advice? Please!

I guess all these partitions are on the same computer (?). First, you have to
know which partition type windows is using : FAT or NTFS? Then you can mount
it where you want with:

mount /dev/hda1 /where/you/want -t vfat -o quiet,ro,shortname=winnt

(replacing vfat by ntfs if needed). Windows is probably installed
on /dev/hda1, run fdisk -l /dev/hda if you're not sure. The ro option ensures
you won't have the right to write on it, preventing some disasters :) and
shortname is required to keep the file names case. You can also make this
permanent by adding a line in your fstab file (see man mount and fstab for
more infos).

And no, reinstalling windows shouldn't touch the debian's partitions, unless
you ask for it, but it will replace your boot loader and you'll have to
reinstall it...

Cedric

Thanks for the prompt reply - this is sounding less of a disaster. How
would I go about reinstalling the bootloader (sorry if this is a dumb
question, but I don't want to screw things up). And yes, should have
been more explicit - the partitions *are* on the same box.

Cheers

/@

--

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"

Cédric Lucantis wrote:

> Le dimanche 1 avril 2007 12:55, andy a écrit :
> > Hi all
> >
> > I've run into a problem: the win98 partition on my wife's machine
^^^^^
> I guess all these partitions are on the same computer (?). First, you
> have to know which partition type windows is using : FAT or NTFS?
> Then you can mount it where you want with:

Win98 can't even read NTFS

The Knoppix disk suggested in this thread is the easiest solution as it
will automatically detect all partitions and create icons to access
them. But if you don't have two optical drives you must copy to some
alternate location (USB, network, ...)

HTH,
Andrei
--
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
(Albert Einstein)