On Wed, 22 May 2013, 22:31, Andrew Greig wrote: } Hi, } } I downloaded and burned the System rescue disc (Gentoo + X), I have a } 2.5 inch Sata drive hooked up with a usb to the computer. } } I plugged the drive in after booting from the system Rescue disk, should } I pug everything in and then boot up? I ask because I do not have the } drive with me at this time. I am trying to recover some data from the } drive for my boss, and for the sake of security, I refrained from } bringing it home. } } Dmesg says this (plugged in after booting): } } [629.870083] usb 1-1.4: new high-speed USB device number 5 using } ehci_hcd } [640.064013] usb 1-1.4: New USB device found, idVendor=174c, } idProduct=5106 } [640.064019] usb 1-1.4: New USB device strings Mfr=2, Product=3, } SerialNumber=1 } [640.064022] usb 1-1.4: Product : AS2105 } [640.064024] usb 1-1.4: Manufacturer: ASMedia } [640.063857] usb 1-1.4: can' set config#1, error -110 } } Given that I will have to mount this drive (Win XP) what values do I } extract from dmesg to do that? When I plug an old (WinXP) drive in, I get a line in my dmesg output that says: [41250.198281] sdb: sdb1 I can then mount the XP partition with: mount /dev/sdb1 -t ntfs /mnt/hd (for example, where /mnt/hd is a pre-existing (usually empty) directory). If all has gone to plan and the partition was mounted successfully, the files you're looking for will be in /mnt/hd/ ... } Gentoo has some empty directories set up in /mnt so I could use one of } those, or should I be mounting into /media? Doesn't really matter in practical terms. I tend to mount stuff manually under /mnt though, and leave the auto-mounted magic for /media (or /run/media). } mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/usb (what) /mnt/drive ???? } } or would booting the system up with drive powered up and connected } produce a better outcome? I don't know that it necessarily would, but at the very least it should give you an extra indication of whether the drive is being detected at all (ie on bootup) if in doubt. Crispy.