Knoppix freezes on load after "creating /etc/fstab" done

I am only sorta familiar with Linux based TS'ing ... so I have some of the idea down but frequently lack the actual ability to do anything! hehe

I have a hdd that has most likely completely failed, but it is STILL being "recognized" by BIOS-level stuff ... so I'm trying to see if there is ANYTHING on there that I can salvage. (It's my husbands & he did NOT listen to me the LAST time this drive gave him trouble ... he has MOST things backed up, but not ALL! *sigh*)

When I try to boot to knoppix (2 different rev's, but I don't recall which ones off the top of my head) with the harddrive plugged in, it gets as far as a line detecting the hdd & trying to write the /etc/fstab ... "Done" ... then nothing more.

I can type (things show up in grey), but absolutely nothing works.

If I take the drive out, I can boot to knoppix just fine (including loading it all into memory).

So ... is there a way to tell it to NOT try to write that directory during loadup? Anyone know what the next command IS (in case it is NOT that /etc/fstab command that is the problem)?

The other option that I have thought up is to load up WITHOUT the drive & then plug it in later ... but right now I'm digging through my documentation to remember how to do that! heheh (Most of my documentation was on another computer that I no longer have access to.)

Thanks in advance!

T

 

IDE generally isn't hot swappable--its not going to be detected after the boot sequence.

My thoughts are...man...hmmm.

Im not aware of any LiveCD that doesn't use fstab to detect current drives...

I guess what you could try to do is use something like ISObuster or WINISO ( Ibelieve these can do it, dont quote me though) and edit the file, then reinsert it into the image.

Or, what might be easier is to see if a Windows based solution would be able to get further.
http://www.ubcd4win.com/