A rescue CD will do lower level operations, rather than mounting the disk like Knoppix is, it will just get access and then run fsck or chkdisk.
Grain of salt, its been a bit since I had to recover a dead disk. I'd try the following: - Have a spare disk ready to dump the data, always assume that you're only going to get it to load one more time - review the doco for booting your rescue CD. - boot rescue CD - if you have a spare, clone the disk immediately. This should be a low level operation, cloning either disk to disk or partition to partition - do a "health check" on the disk, if it supports SMART this should tell all - review the partition table - run fsck/chkdisk - attempt to mount the disk Is the disk making any unwholesome noises? Does it spin up? How old is it? Is the brand or model known for problems? On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 9:31 AM, John McKelvey <[email protected]> wrote: > Folks, > > Thanks for the comments ... > > What I was attempting to do was use Knoppix to see if I could rescue > information from an XP-PRO drive. As far as I can tell Knoppix seems > to start up OK, but dies with the message belowwhen it is looking for > a hard drive to analyze > > > "Kernel panic.. not synching: VFS: unable to mount root fs on > unknown-block(1,3)" > > While I am wondering if any rescue software would work if Knoppix > can't find the drive in question I certainly am not savy about any of > the "black magic" that might be out there somewhere that might help > resolve the problem. While I fear a dead disk, XP-PRO does try to run > a CHKDSK on the drive, so maybe all is not lost. > > I'm still open for comments and suggestions. > > Thanks again.. > > John > > > > On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Vern Ceder <[email protected]> > wrote: > > I would unhook the bad hard drive and see if it can boot Knoppix then. If > > both the hard drive and the cd drive are on the same channels, then a bad > > device can cause all devices to fail. > > > > Vern > > > > John McKelvey wrote: > >> > >> My wife has an XP-PRO machine that won't boot either in safe or normal > >> modes. > >> > >> I tried a Knoppix live CD and it responded > >> > >> "Kernrl panic.. not synching: VFS: unable to mount root fs on > >> unknown-block(1,3)" > >> > >> Is this the worst possible? > >> > >> John > > > > -- > > This time for sure! > > -Bullwinkle J. Moose > > ----------------------------- > > Vern Ceder, Director of Technology > > Canterbury School, 3210 Smith Road, Ft Wayne, IN 46804 > > [email protected]; 260-436-0746; FAX: 260-436-5137 > > > > > > -- > John McKelvey > 10819 Middleford Pl > Ft Wayne, IN 46818 > 260-489-2160 > [email protected] > > _______________________________________________ > Fwlug mailing list > [email protected] > http://fortwaynelug.org/mailman/listinfo/fwlug_fortwaynelug.org > -- ----- Jonathan Bartels
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