[Bug-ddrescue] HD failure - total linux newbie - can't launch ddrescue -help

[mintoh]

Hi, I'm a total linux newbie but my dell laptop hard disk has failed and
after reading on the net, I've come accross dd_rescue and ddrescue.

My laptop won't boot up and is making clicking noises.  I download Knoppix
5.1 and booted up from that.
I can see 3 partitions on the hd.  P1 is dell utilites, P3 is the dell image
restore and P2 is the main partition with windows and all my documents which
I DO NOT have a back up of.

I can access both P1 and P3 in the knoppix GUI, browse the directories, etc. 
P2 is not accessable though, it just hangs clicking away.

I loaded up knoppix on another windows PC and tested out dd_rescue which is
included with the knoppix cd, on my non-damaged other pc's hard disk.  I
also have a spare larger capacity HDD in a USB enclosure so it managed to
copy the HD okay.

I then read up a bit more and discovered that ddrescue would be better as it
skips over the bad sectors instead of trying for ages.  But as it's not
included with knoppix I would have to mount and install it.

I downloaded the file ddrescue-1.5.tar.bz2 from my other windows pc and
copied it accross onto a floppy.

Now, as I said I'm a total newbie.  How do I mount this floppy and
decompress the file to run it?

So far I've
launched knoppix
inserted USB floppy recognised by the GUI as SDA
opened up konsole 
typed sudo -s
typed cd /media/sda
typed tar xjf ddrescue-1.5.tar.bz2

and this is were I'm stuck
I'm getting alot of "skipping to next header" and "cannot open: no such file
or directory" messages.

The commands I copied from another web page I came accross and have no ideal
what xjf does, possibly the /media/sda part is wrong.  I also tried
/dev/floppy and /dev/fd0.

Once I can get this simple task up and running I have a lot more problems
ahead, as I'm waiting for a 2.5 to 3.5 hd adapter so that I can put the HD
into my other pc and run it from there rather than from the laptop.
The clicking makes me think it's not going to last long so I would prefer to
try and get ddrescue working rather than dd_rescue.

Oh and I tried spinrite but it doesn't even recognise the HD.


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