A week of trouble free Linux... Then this

Since I got all my hardware sorted out, everything has been running very smoothly until the last couple of days.
When I start kppp to connect to the internet, it gets as far as "Modem Ready" then the computer completely freezes and I have to turn off with the power switch.
I haven't done anything differently or installed any new hardware or software in the last week so I can't imagine what's causing it.
The only problem I've had is that occasionaly on startup there was a message
that said Firestarter (my firewall) had failed to find the device ppp0 and I was left with a login prompt and had to startx manually. When this message came up I would get the freezing problem but when the message didn't come up I could connect to the internet normally.
I have tried removing Firestarter and now the computer is booting up without any problems but it is still freezing every time I try to start the modem.
The freezing also happens if I try querying the modem.
Does anyone know what's wrong?
I don't want to have to reinstall again.
Oh, and it's kernel 2.4 - the modem won't even install with 2.6

[EDIT] Forgot to mention, it's a hard drive install.

Well this is just great. Since I couldn't solve this problem I've ended up reinstalling Knoppix to the hard drive from scratch and now the modem driver won't even install. I've copied exactly what I did to install it last time but suddenly it's refusing to work. Linux is driving me mad and I've had enough of it. It's a huge chore to do the simplest things and I'm sick of all the hassle.
I want rid of it alltogether now so can anyone tell me how I can get rid of Lilo from the mbr?
I'm using 2 hard drives, XP on the first one and Knoppix on the second.
When I did the Knoppix install I loaded Lilo to the mbr and I'm assuming it will be the mbr on the XP drive since that's the first one.
How can I get rid of it and boot into XP as normal?

Many possibilities, amongst which:

- if you've got an old DOS boot-diskette, run fdisk/mbr from it
- if you've got a genuine NT/2K/XP MS cd (not a crippled restore only OEM one), boot to the recovery console, then issue "fixmbr"
- strip down your /etc/lilo.conf to only contain the windows entry, set the timeout to zero, install to MBR ("boot=/dev/hda"). then run "lilo -v".

Also, make sure your windows primary partition (probably /dev/hda1) is the only one marked active/bootable.

Oh, and thanks for flying knoppix airways ;-}

Thanks for the info, I'm not actually sure what I've got. XP came pre-installed on this computer and a disk did come with it but I can't for the life of me find it at the moment.
I also have an old XP upgrade disk but I don't believe i can use that for for booting.

Anyhow, it doesn't really matter now. I did my usual frustrated rant on a forum and when I calmed down I decided to give it "one more try" at sorting the modem out. I did the same thing as I had done before when it didn't work and before that when it did and it actually installed properly again and I'm back on the net.
There's still a huge amount I don't understand about Linux but I keep trying.

I don't know what's the rage about completely ditching windows. If it came pre-installed, you paid for it! Unless you're short on diskspace, dual-booting is ideal for learning at your own pace without giving up what you already master - and most probably need eg for gaming. Also try to resist the urge to reinstall linux - it's much more satisfying to understand and fix it on your own.

If you're dealing with a so-called winmodem, guess what: they're not very linux-friendly (what a surprise). Do yourself a favour and buy a (cheap, second-hand if you have to) external modem and hook it to that probably unused serial port at the back of your box - don't forget the cable ;-) Unix has always had very strong support for those, well before the networking days - yes I'm that old. There are way more interesting things to learn about linux than how to make it jump through winhoops. Having said that, if you have access to broadband, you might want to give Kanotix a spin, as I hear it comes with more winmodems drivers than Knoppix does.

Good luck.

I have decided that it would indeed be a good idea to get a new friendly modem which i will probably have next week.
One of the reasons I chose Knoppix is that I read (on their website I think) that a July release of the Kernel would include support for my particular modem. I read this in October and just assumed the page hadn't been updated but the Kernel had. I actually downloaded Knoppix in October and expected everything to work fine.