Paul,

This is obliquely related to Aircraft  perhaps a good metaphor for rotaryengines as well  so enjoy:)


If Operating Systems Ran The Airlines...

UNIX Airways

Everyone brings one piece of the plane along when they come to the
airport. They all go out on the runway and put the plane together pieceby piece, arguing non-stop about what kind of plane they are supposed to
be building.

Air DOS

Everybody pushes the airplane until it glides, then they jump on and let
the plane coast until it hits the ground again. Then they push again,
jump on again, and so on...

Mac Airlines

All the stewards, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents look and
act exactly the same. Every time you ask questions about details, you
are gently but firmly told that you don't need to know, don't want to
know, and everything will be done for you without your ever having to
know, so just shut up.

Windows Air

The terminal is pretty and colorful, with friendly stewards, easy baggagecheck and boarding, and a smooth take-off. After about 10 minutes in the
air, the plane explodes with no warning whatsoever.

Windows NT Air

Just like Windows Air, but costs more, uses much bigger planes, and takes
out all the other aircraft within a 40-mile radius when it explodes.

Linux Air

Disgruntled employees of all the other OS airlines decide to start theirown airline. They build the planes, ticket counters, and pave the
runways themselves. They charge a small fee to cover the cost of
printing the ticket, but you can also download and print the ticket
yourself.

When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and
a copy of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable seat
is very comfortable, the plane leaves and arrives on time without a
single problem, the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell
customers of the other airlines about the great trip, but all they can
say is, "You had to do what with the seat?"

Lee, UK


Doug in Japan

That used to be true. Now you don't have to assemble the seat :)
You really need to get one of those EeePC's the next time you come to the
states.

Paul Lamar

Some day I'll try it for myself. However I just had a CNC machine which
runs under Linux implode on me the other day..  scrambled the
Compact flash hard drive w/ a Grub Error..  took 18hrs to re-load
and configure the machine w/ a new flash hard drive..  nobody had
ever heard of this happening..  everyone said it was impossible..
it only took me 2 days of using the machine before I destroyed it :-)

I've still got the hard drive [scrambled one] in it's original form.. and as
of yet.. no-one has been able to touch it.. No app will open it or allow
any data to come off it..

It was an interesting experiance to say the least :-)

Jarrett

You need to find out what version of Linux it is.
Different version sometimes have different file systems.
Fedora has a file system that is interchangeable with Windows.
Also Fedora can set up different file systems on the same computer.

Then get a PC with a new small hard drive and the suspect hard drive as a second
slave drive. Or a USB drive. Install the same version of Linux on the new hard drive. Then you should be able to read the vast majority of data on the suspect drive. The file system choices are many. You can get a 1000 page book on Linux in the book stores that comes with a DVD with Linux on it. Cost is about $50 US

Paul Lamar