Absolute newbie needs help

[Jazz1]

Like many I decided to try knoppix because I could run it off a CD and get my feet wet in Linux easily.

I downloaded the 3.4 ISO and burned an image to CD.

It boots into knoppix and I get a whole screen full of stuff it is doing/loading (video/sound etc.) UNTIL I get to the line saying "Scanning for Harddisk partitions and creating /etc/fstab/..._" and then it just sits there. I waited at least 5 minutes 3 times and it just hangs there never progressing any farther.

I know nothing about knoppix and have no idea how to troubleshoot it.

[pulsar]

Type in the bootscreen 'knoppix nodma' and hit enter. If that does'nt help try 'knoppix noapic' or 'knoppix failsave'.
http://www.eleli.de/knoppix/docs/tutorial/english/knoppix_boot_details.html

[Jazz1]

Thanks. I finally got it to work by using the knoppix26 command at the boot: prompt. Why it works using the 2.6 kernel and not the 2.4 kernel I have no idea.