Reading/copying /home with a live CD

English Install/Boot/Login
1

HI,
I have a messed up HHD with OS11.0 on it. I’m unable to boot it or load it. If I use suse 10 live it sees only itself. If I use Knoppix live I can see /home on the drive but I’m unable to copy any of the files. cause I don’t have permission. How can I log in as SU? to get the permission that I need.

Thanks,
Ron

2

That rather depends on how knoppix works, but I’d guess it doesn’t have a root password (most Live CD’s don’t. If it does, try to guess it or google it).

Load knoppix


su -
[password here]
fdisk -l
mount

That should tell you which partitions are on the system, and which are mounted. If it’s already mounted, great! Rescue the stuff you need. If not…


mkdir /mnt/suse
mount /dev/sdXY /mnt/suse
cd /mnt/suse
[rescue your stuff]

Substituting sdXY for the correct information from before. If you get the wrong partition, just


umount /mnt/suse

and try again…

3

Thanks Confuseling,

I am able to use Terminal as su. no password needed. My Linux command language is really limited. If I have a file on the old /home/pictures and want to copy it from hdb3 to uda1. what is the copy command?
I followed your instructions to cd /mnt/suse

From there I’m kinda lost. :shame:

Ron

4

I can usually manage this in knoppix once the partition is mounted, if you are just copying it should just work.
Other than that I use Mepis which has a root login on the live cd, also Parted Magic IIRC can manage this. Of course a suse live cd can be booted as root but I have never tried it’s capabilities.

5

I’ve lost my Suse live disk. How do you spell copy in linux?
Ron

6

eg:

cp /dev/sda1/foldername* /dev/sdc/backup*

Replace with your values/foldernames etc…

7

You had any luck? I’m a little confused by you mentioning hdb4 - I didn’t think SUSE 11 designated anything ‘hd’, but I may be completely wrong.

If you’re stuck, give us the output of ‘fdisk -l’ from your knoppix root terminal, and tell us which partition you’re trying to copy parts of to which other partition, and we can give you precisely the right commands…

8

Well, I got unstuck, I installed OS 11.2 on a new HHD. Then out the bad hhd in as a slave and was able to rescue my files.
Oh, Knoppix live 3.8 labeled that drive as hdb4.

Thanks for all your help.
Ron

9

:shame:

Doh! clearly not paying attention, sorry about that…

Glad you’re sorted though…