Linux can save your data (NewsForge) [LWN.net]

Linux can save your data (NewsForge)

Posted Aug 10, 2004 9:05 UTC (Tue) by lacostej (subscriber, #2760)
Parent article: Linux can save your data (NewsForge)

My only problem with using Linux as recovery disk is when I have a PC laying with NTFS partition.

I find it unacceptable that the FileSystem that stores most of the user's data today is still locked into a proprietary format. I don't understand how governments accept that.

Appart from that Knoppix has been my friend for recovery jobs from day one. There's another specialized linux live distro that does the recovery job, but I don't recall the name.

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Linux can save your data (NewsForge)

Posted Aug 10, 2004 9:54 UTC (Tue) by thomask (guest, #17985) [Link]

That really annoys me. Quite apart from the fact that RH refuse to add NTFS support to Fedora Core, the only way to safely write to a Windoze partition is to use FAT32 (which is actually an option if you install Windows yourself). My gripe with FAT32 is that it can't take big files - i.e. no DVD ripping or making home movies or any of that sort of thing. And since I'm still stuck using Windows for most things, that it a pain.

Linux can save your data (NewsForge)

Posted Aug 10, 2004 12:02 UTC (Tue) by dmaxwell (guest, #14010) [Link]

Captive wraps the Windows NTFS drivers so that Linux can arbitrarily read and write NTFS partitions quite safely. The drawback is that it is slow. The latest Knoppix includes Captive.

I've used it to recover data but the other way it helped me out was giving me a way to shove a NIC driver for a newer card onto a Windows 2000 partition. I've done that several times. Making a new Windows install is soooo much easier when you already have the driver install media unpacked and sitting in directories.

Linux can save your data (NewsForge)

Posted Aug 10, 2004 21:59 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

Getting read-only NTFS support for Fedora is a simple matter; just install one RPM from this site. There isn't any reliable Linux driver that writes NTFS, though there is a kludge called Captive.