I have a Macbook Pro from 2009. I am attempting to recover data from a failing drive, and I also hope to install Linux for dual booting once I have recovered the data. The laptop has an NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT video card, and Intel Core2 Duo T9800 @ 2.93 GHz processor.

Knoppix 6.7.1 fails to boot. It correctly identifies the graphics and sound cards, however it stalls during "System Setup" while "Starting DRM and Framebuffer Mode..." Interestingly, when I tried Knoppix 6.2.1, it boots just fine.

Any suggestions as to what may be causing this? Thanks for your help!