BrianN324

I downloaded the newest version (6.1?) and made a boot CD from the ISO. Since I wanted to try Knoppix on my Acer Aspire One netbook, I had an external CD connected and it booted and ran quite nicely.

Then, my intention was to create a bootable version on a USB thumbdrive. I found the menu item to do so, and this is where things went wrong.

Instead of installing Knoppix on the USB, it installed on the hard drive. I now need to know how to remove it from the hard drive, and be able to boot Windows again. Since I don't know what it really did when it installed to the hard drive and it's been a few years since I tried any Linux type OS, I am pretty much at a loss.

I can boot from the USB also, as I did make a USB bootable. However, I don't know where to go from here to eliminate or change what is on my hard drive.

This is an Acer Aspire One with a 160GB HD and 1GB RAM. I have looked at the files on the disc and it appears that everything is still there, but Knoppix has of course taken control at boot and comes up apparently without any other option unless someone can advise otherwise. I would appreciate whatever you can recommend. I am hoping I don't have to start from scratch, format and reload Windows and everything else to get this back to normal.

bn

MikeTbob

Hello and Welcome.
Insert the Knoppix CD and reboot the machine, open a terminal window and issue this command.
That's a lowercase L, not an I.
Post the output back here and try to tell us what you know about the partitions.

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BrianN324

Thanks for your quick response. I ran it as noted, and it returned:

knoppix@Microknoppix:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x11a8ba38

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 637 5116671 12 Compaq diagnostics
/dev/sda2 638 19457 151171650 7 HPFS/NTFS
knoppix@Microknoppix:~$


Now, I don't know much about the configuration of the hard drive. This is a small netbook, and comes with Windows XP installer on the disk I believe it installed when it was first booted. (A little confusion there, this is my 2nd model, I took back an HP mini, this Acer was much better)

Anyway, as I was looking around with the file program in Knoppix, it shows a directory (folder) knoppix, (with another folder inside: Desktop) along with a another folder or designation called ACER and that appears to have everything else in there that was on the laptop.

In the ACER category are a lot of directories - essentially all that were in there under Windows, including one called Acer, within that is EMPOWERING TECHNOLOGY which has a program called eRecovery. Now, this is essentially the Acer Window recovery disc, as there is no optical drive in this netbook, it relies on USB disc connection or flash drive of several types.

I believe that I might be able to run eRecovery from a USB but I wanted to get your take on how Knoppix could be either removed or at least altered so that it will not boot, but will allow Windows to boot.

In the normal operation of this netbook a DOS version of eRecovery is supposed to start up if you enter ALT+F10 at boot up. It does not work now, however, and Knoppix still boots. I have not used the eRecovery program so I'm not very familiar but I do have instructions here and online.

I can set it to boot first from a USB stick, which might run eRecovery if there are bootable files in there, it would seem that that might be a possibility.

This I guess is the bottom line, what does Knoppix actually do in an install to be able to boot before Windows, and what does it do to an existing Windows install?

Again, thanks very much for your reply. It would seem that there might be a way to find some of the files that control how Knoppix actually boots, and prevent it from doing so, or even eliminate files if that would then allow Windows to boot.

MikeTbob

DO you have a Winxp CD? And if yes can you boot to XP's recovery console and run "fixmbr"?
I don't see a Linux partition anywhere, it's possible that you only installed grub to the master boot record.

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BrianN324

There is no Windows XP disc with this computer. It has the OS installed, and apparently, after reading though some of the stuff on the Acer site, they do partition the drive with a C:/ and a D:/ drive and they put the eRecovery stuff on the D:/ drive.

Now, in order to do a recovery that might put it back to normal, you need to be running Windows, or be able to boot to the eRecovery program that also has that DOS version. This may all not be necessary as you say, there is no Linux partition and I believe that this is so. Whatever Knoppix does when it installs on a drive like a thumbdrive is what it apparently did - but I am using the touchpad and in doing the choice between drives, it went to the hard drive instead of USB flash.

So, it installed whatever should be on a flash drive on the hard drive. Since I don't know what it did, and I am not totally familiar with Knoppix, I can see files there but don't yet want to do anything like deleting stuff.

I did see the other post below that had a similar issue, which was apparently solved with a command like sudo install-mbr /dev/sda (or /mda) but I have no idea what this is actually doing.

It would seem that is Knoppix just kind of installed it's files 'over' Windows, there may be something that can be altered to bypass the Knoppix boot and allow Windows to boot. However, I realize if the Windows boot info was deleted or altered I may need to do some kind of recovery to restore this netbook to factory defaults. This would be OK if nothing else works to get back to Windows.

Thanks,
bn

BrianN324

I should have mentioned that eRecovery does apparently offer several options for recovery if I can get it to run - either the DOS version or the full Windows version. Acer does not say exactly what those options are, and I will probably find out by running it. First I wanted to see if there is something I can do on the Knoppix side to prevent it from booting and let Windows go ahead and boot. I know it probalbly has no real provision for this as is was not designed to run from the hard drive.
bn

BrianN324

I do have several Windows XP install discs for other machines. It occured to me that this might work just to fix something simple in the boot, as the "fixmbr" you mention. However, these netbooks have a special version of Windows XP so I'm not sure how it differs.
bn

MikeTbob

What exactly happens when you reboot the machine with no CD in the drive and no USB device hooked up? Do you see a GRUB> prompt or anything at all?

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BrianN324

Knoppix is running just as is would from any other drive, it's just that it's on the C:/ drive and I need to remove it. It boots and pauses for input for screen res then continues to boot and runs quite well. I just need to get rid of it for now so I can get Windows to boot as normal if possible. As noted that other post that's labeled 'solved' describes this pretty closely but I dont' want to follow those particular instructions unless someone can tell me that's the way to go.

bn

BrianN324

There is one pause while booting when it comes up to a point and it shows:

boot

then continues. Perhaps there is some input that can be done at some point during boot to stop?
bn