# How to use Knoppix 3.7 CD to recover files?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-use-knoppix-3-7-cd-to-recover-files/615729>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 14, 2012, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-use-knoppix-3-7-cd-to-recover-files/615729 "2012-03-14T11:24:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-use-knoppix-3-7-cd-to-recover-files/615729/1 "2012-03-14T11:24:15Z")

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I’ve got a computer whose Windows install is well and truly broken. However, it can boot from a Knoppix CD, and the other contents of the hard drive appear to be intact.

I’ve also got an external NTFS hard drive, and a laptop running Windows XP.

I want to get files from computer #1 onto the external hard drive. There are apparently a number of possible methods to do this, but none have been successful so far. Could someone familiar with this version of Linux pick the one they consider the easiest/most likely to succeed, and tell me how to make it do what I want?

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**Author:** ![goldmund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a4c791/32.png) [@goldmund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/goldmund)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-use-knoppix-3-7-cd-to-recover-files/615729/2 "2012-03-14T13:40:44Z")

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From a command prompt, type: df

You’ll get a list of devices and mountpoints. Leftmost entry on each line is the device name, rightmost is where in the filesystem it’s mounted.

The internal disk will likely be /dev/sda and the USB disk will likely be /dev/sdb. Say they were mounted at /media/internaldisk and /media/usbdisk for example, you could copy the contents of the internal drive to a directory on the USB disk like so:

mkdir /media/usbdisk/olddata  
cd /media/internaldisk  
tar cvfp - \* | (cd /media/usbdisk/olddata && tar xfp -)

Hope this helps

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**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-use-knoppix-3-7-cd-to-recover-files/615729/3 "2012-03-14T15:54:56Z")

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Will your instructions get around the problem of not being able to write to the drive by default when attempting to use the GUI to copy and paste?