Ok guys, odd problem this time.

I moved coast-to-coast recently, and my old P200 box got dropped on its side. It might have survived, had it not landed on the very corner of the curb - hitting the case broadsides. The concrete punched right through the poor thing. Mobo was actually cracked, and the ram twisted. It was downright ugly.

But, the HD made it! Tough little 20gig drive. But here's where keeping him alive might get harder.

I had a friend install Linux on that box many years ago - the thing ran beautifully as a web server for me. Never had to touch it. I don't even remember what version of Red Hat was on there. It was 2000 or 2001 when I originally had it setup.

The only slot I can house this drive in is inside an existing Win2k Pro box that is (itself) mission critical.

The drive powers up and is recognized by Windows. But, Windows of course thinks the drive needs to be formatted. I don't want to do that - I really need the data on there.

How can I transform my wife's single-boot/one drive system into a dual-boot/dual-drive system...

-- without knowing which precise version of RedHat was on the drive
-- without affecting drive #1 at all
-- without wiping the 2nd drive

I remember having to go through some gymnastics with the hardware for the Linux box, so here's tons of detail on the Win2k hardware:

Win2000 Pro
PIII-800
512mb RAM
Permidia2V 8mb card
Creative Labs 5x DVD drive
Creative PC-DVD card CT7220
Linksys NIC
Soundblaster CT3600 sound card (old, old card)
USB 2.0 expansion card

-- Win2k drive is master on ide1
-- Linux tough guy is cable select on ide2
-- Set to slave had same effect as CS
-- Set to master wouldn't recognize in Win2k

Someone help me make this tough little harddrive breathe again!

Thanks,
Twinmoon

Well, here is an idea not sure what you could do with it afterwards...but one of the CDROM bootable Linux versions? Knoppix or Damn Small Linux might be able to do something....

Setup Samaba really quick to transfer the files you need over? Just an idea.

A CD Linux to copy the data you need. Some of them come with NTFS write support so you can copy stuff to your windows partition easy.

Or an ext2 driver/reader in windows. Explore2fs is great for one time use. It will read the Linux partition and allow you to copy everything you need.

Get Knoppix It's a Live Linux-On-CD, and i think the newer versions (3.4) can write to NTFS. If you can't get it to write to NTFS, format a drive to FAT32.

http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=44

hey man sorry about that,anyway u need yo data,u hav 2options,
1.get a live cd of either KNOPPIX or PCLINUXOS,then boot it with that drive,it will automount or u can mount it as "$ mount /dev/hda/drive name'' 4u 2access yo data,or
u can use raw data recovery software,like salvage/getdataback.then about yo wife's box,u hav 2pertition it first then install de os u want.u can resize it if u dont want 2loose data.good luck man.R

Well done resurrecting a thread over two years old. I'm pretty sure that he is no longer interested in his data