Knoppix Linux penetrates Windows security. I used it to rescue/recover from Windows crash

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[dennisw]

Why not click on this   ftp://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/knoppix/    and try the FTP function of Internet Explorer? Only drawback is it cannot resume a broken download and may be slower than real FTP like Ipswich. The Windows "details" view makes it easiest to see what the full name of the 20+ downloads are.

 

Download this latest greatest Knoppix version:

KNOPPIX_V3.3-2003-11-14-EN.iso

 

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Below are the downloads for checksums for the above specific download dated 11-14-2003

KNOPPIX_V3.3-2003-11-14-EN.iso.md5

KNOPPIX_V3.3-2003-11-14-EN.iso.md5.asc

checksum for this = e0767b4ffd218d09400627fbccc2d094

[dennisw]

It's stupid, but it's reality. After experiencing the problem with a friend's Sony VAIO computer, I bought an extra copy of WinXP for my own Sony VAIO, so I don't find myself in the same situation. I'll never buy another Sony VAIO laptop, or any other computer that doesn't provide a true Windows OEM distribution CD-ROM.

I'm pretty sure Sony pays less for this less functional version of XP. I believe I encountered this with a neighbor's Dell computer with XP home edition. I tried to do an XP repair (semi-reinstall) for her where files and folders are left intact. Only the XP operating system is reinstalled. Could not do it.

 I have this option, with my stand alone XP pro disk and my home built computer

[Lunatic Fringe]

Two words:

Tape backup

=)

[af_vet_rr]

Linux is pretty damn useful in repair Windows slop...

A few years ago I worked around a lot of non-techies. You'd be surprised how many times a certain floppy was used to fix one thing or another - it was a linux boot floppy that could read/check partitions, as well reset windows passwords (NT and 2000, and the newest versions are XP compatible). A lot of people forget their passwords somehow. They are quite surprised when a single floppy resets it. There are tons of these floppy/mini-distros floating around now.

Their one saving grace was that most were using IBM Thinkpads and had the harddrive passwords enabled - which as far as I know, are pretty much unbreakable outside of IBM (and there is some debate over whether IBM can/will reset those passwords). I don't think most other laptop manufacturers have as much security as those drives.

The amount of people out there who think setting up a Windows passwords is all the security they need is quite scary, almost as scary as the amount of people who don't even bother, or use the enter key.

[clueless idiot]

Excellent article. I am running it right now to extract files from a crashed workstation.

One helpful tip: Knoppix 3.3 (latest version) uses German as the default language. To change this, at the

boot:

prompt, type

knoppix lang=en

However: because the keyboard is mapped to the German language, you need to press shift-0 (zero) for the equal sign.

[dennisw]

Thanks... the only way I could extract files was to burn to CD. Which I did. I was hoping I could drag and drop them into a storage partition.... just more convenient.

The way Knoppix penetrated Windows XP security for me>>

#1) I installed my "bad" hard drive (Windows XP) as slave on another computer (Windows XP) . 

But no way would windows XP allow me to drag my vital files (in the administrator folder) over to the master hard drive or a storage partition on the problem hard drive. Windows XP did it's job by preventing this. Great!

#2) But Knoppix allowed my to easily view my vital files and burn to disk. Thus Knoppix can penetrate windows security. Depending on how secure your computer is someone can insert a Knoppix CD and at minimum view, even copy by CD-R or floppy, your secured files

[clueless idiot]

A malicious user can also copy restricted files from the workstation to a server volume with public r/w access and bypass security in that way.

While I haven't tried it, I suspect XFS-encrypted folders would not be accessible by Knoppix or any other non-MS OS.

Another reminder that best practices demand physical security of any machines with sensitive data (read: most corporate networked workstations).

Still, Knoppix is proving to be a fantastic recovery solution and I recommend anyone responsible for administration of networked Windows machines download and test a copy for themselves.

[decimon]

Dennis,

Is it practical/feasible to run Knoppix from a cd or dvd drive? I ask because doing so would make it impervious to viruses or operational corruption. Only the current session could be pooched.

[dennisw]

Is it practical/feasible to run Knoppix from a cd or dvd drive? I ask because doing so would make it impervious to viruses or operational corruption. Only the current session could be pooched.........

On a fast system it might be. I found it too slow on an 850mhz Duron w 512 mb memory. Just my opinion though. It's a good Linux demo but runing fron CD has it's drawbacks. Knoppix can be installed to a hard drive.

[djf]

I’m gonna bump this thread. What happened was this: I was having trouble with my CD burner, so I pulled it and installed an HP cd burner I had salvaged from somewhere.

The burner already had a disk in it, and when I rebooted my machine, Knoppix 3.6 fired up. I played with it a bit and saved the disk.

Went back and tried it again, darned if that CD booted on just about every machine I have, and seemed to have no hardware problems.

So I went online and downloaded the latest and greatest - Knoppix 5.1

My recommendation:

Get this system!
Now!

It is very, very good, perhaps a bit weak in a few of the applications, but in general, very, very powerful and because you burn it to CD, basically incorruptible. I even got it working with little effort with my wireless card.

If you get/have Windows problems, you can use it to fix windows, but after using Knoppix for a bit, you might not WANT to fix windows...

Very impressive. And it overcomes alot of the user interface problems that other distros are prone to. That means us regular humans can use it, you don’t have to be some kinda Linux geek who lives in a cave, eats bugs, and dreams in C+++++

An added bonus is the IceWeasel web browser which looks alot like Firefox (and even recognizes the Foxmarks bookmark extension, absolutely essential if you are running multiple boxes and multiple OS’s.)

[2111USMC]

Bookmark for setting up my first experimental machine