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I'm using my Ubuntu 6.10 CD as a live CD, however, I want to look through the harddrive to see if there is something more I can backup before reformatting the XP install. The problem is, under "Computer" I can only see the CD/CD-RW drive, file system and the external drive I have plugged in. The system harddrive isn't displayed under "Computer" and that's what I want to look through. My question is, how can I backup the data from an NTFS harddrive onto my external harddrive (also NTFS) using the Ubuntu Live CD?

Thanks

The drive should auto-mount if it's detected by Ubuntu. Is it under /media/ somewhere?

Thanks for the reply Bounty.
I'll check tomorrow morning, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't. I'm fairly sure only my external drive was listed under media. It won't matter as much tomorrow (I hope), as that drive will be getting a nice external enclosure and will be replaced with a fresh install on a new drive.

You can use Gparted to copy your XP NTFS partition to an external media (although it will require the exact same amount of space), but make sure you back up your important documents before doing ths 'second stage backup". You could also use dd to accomplish the same task, but I do not reccommend it, as dd is an extremely dangerous app. If you decided to do it, the command would be:

dd if="your current partition" of="yourbackup"

It's also possible to backup to an image in this manner:

dd if="your NTFS partition" of=backup.img

DO NOT confuse the if (input file) and of (output file).

Finally, as you may be able to intimate from the above, dd is also an extremely uesful tool for the deliberate destruction of data (its a great way to sterilize an HD you're getting rid of):

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda

The above would copy the contents of the Linux kernel random number generator special device file into the hard disk "hda", resulting in massive pwnage. Such a command would only be effective if your OS was running on a different drive, such as off of an Ubuntu LiveCD (which you have), or else, there would naturally be a kernel panic.