On Thu, Apr 22, 2004 at 10:54:21AM -0500, Lawrence Clemens wrote:
> >From the Knoppix desktop I opened a command box and entered dmesg - nothing
> happened.  I clicked on the hdb1 icon and a window to the sick drive opened
> (no files showed).  Again I opened a command box and entered dmesg and
> clicked run and got "could not run the specified command".

If what you mean by a command box is a terminal window like
xterm (ie a window that gives sensible results if you type ls in),
then what you are saying seems right to me. 

To double check something wasn't funky with Knoppix, I just
booted into Knoppix 3.2.   Immediately after booting I open a
Konsole (Window/shell icon) and type dmesg.  I get several pages
of results.  To concentrate on the relevant results, I try 
  dmesg | grep hd
which only give lines containing the text hd and I get:

Kernel command line: ####################### =/etc/init lang=us
apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi
hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=791 initrd=miniroot.gz nomce quiet
BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix BOOT_IMAGE=vmlinuz
ide_setup: hda=scsi
ide_setup: hdb=scsi
ide_setup: hdc=scsi
ide_setup: hdd=scsi
ide_setup: hde=scsi
ide_setup: hdf=scsi
ide_setup: hdg=scsi
ide_setup: hdh=scsi
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0x24a0-0x24a7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0x24a8-0x24af, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
hda: WDC WD800BB-00CAA0, ATA DISK drive
hdc: CD-W540E, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: Compaq CD-ROM SC-148E, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hda: 156301488 sectors (80026 MB) w/2048KiB Cache,
CHS=10337/240/63
ide-cd: passing drive hdc to ide-scsi emulation.
ide-cd: passing drive hdd to ide-scsi emulation.
 hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 < hda5 hda6 hda7 hda8 > hda4

The most relevant lines are the lines that start with ide0:
through the line that starts with hdd:. These lines tell me the
setting for my two ide chains and what devices were found.  If
you don't see a hdd: line for the harddrive that you are trying
to save, then I don't think there is anything you can do from
Linux.  Since it sounds like you Knoppix gave you an icon for
this disk, I bet that you will have an hdb: (or similar) line.

So, I think my guess was wrong.  I'll take a look at your old
messages again and see if I see any hints as to whay dd didn't
work for you.

> With a Mandrake drive as master, entering a command box and dmesg returned
> nothing.

Odd, I don't understand why you aren't getting results.  Oh, wait
are you using Run Command from the KDE menu or something similar?
If so, that's the problem.  By default, those don't return
output.  Try a Konsole or xterm Window instead.

 
> Am I doing this correctly?
> 
> BTW when Mandrake booted it offered to configure the sick drive in several
> formats - EXT3, Fat 32. I declined and cancel out of that.  Correct?

Yes, don't let it re-format the drive. 

> Knoppix shows hdb icon on the desktop, while I only see evidence of it in
> Mandrake if I run Configure Hardware.  It shows the drive, but I think I
> should not configure it.
> 
> I suspect this all does not sound good, thanks for direction.

It doesn't sound great, but its better than I thought from my
glance through ths thread.

-- 
Jim Crumley                  |Twin Cities Linux Users Group Mailing List (TCLUG)
crumley at fields.space.umn.edu |Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota 
Ruthless Debian Zealot       |http://www.mn-linux.org/ 
Never laugh at live dragons  |Dmitry's free,Jon's next? http://faircopyright.org

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