Questions regarding Knoppix

Mark Phillips wrote:
> I am trying to use a Knoppix CD to copy an image of a partition to an
> external storage device. The Knoppix CD boots without any errors and it
> recognizes both the external (firewire) and internal drives. I can mount
> the drives and read them. However, I cannot write to either drive. I just
> get an error that says I cannot write to the drive. Both drives are
> formatted for Widows (the internal drive is for Win2K). The Knoppix CD
> reads the permissions rwx for everyone, and the user and group are knoppix.
> Since I have not changed the settings for the Knoppic CD, I assume I am
> user knoppix.
>
> 1. What do I need to do to be able to write to the drives?
> 2. Can I mess up the drives if I write to them from Knoppix since they were
> formatted from Windows?

What format are the drives? If NTFS then linux has at best a read-only
capability in the kernel. if you are just wanting a raw copy of one partition
to another, try unmounting the partitions and using dd to copy them.