Can not see sata drives

Hello,
being a newbie with Knoppix I tried really hard to solve my problem searching the existing topics, but no luck...

I had a crash on my winXP machine (AMD3.5+, 1GB RAM, 2SATA HDs,...)
For some reason it would give not boot (problem with HD?)
So.. perfect opportunity to try my Knoppix 3.4 CD.

Booted from the CD - ok.
Recognised CDs and floppy - ok
Recognised HDs .. - NO

tried to mount all the devices, both from terminal and using the konqueror (executed as root), but never got to see their contents.

The device list I see is:

/proc (/proc)
/sys (/sys)
/dev/pts (/dev/pts)
/dev/fd0 (/mnt/auto/floppy)
/dev/cdrom (/mnt/auto/cdrom)
/dev/cdrom1 (/mnt/auto/cdrom1)
noauto,users,exec (0)

I have already mounted the non-cd and non-floppy ones, but when tried to access them they give the following error:
----------------------------
Could not mount device.
The reported error was:
mount:fs type sysfs not supported by kernel
----------------------------
or
----------------------------
Could not mount device.
The reported error was:
mount:proc already mounted
----------------------------
I have a lot of info in these HDs and I am really worried...

I read the Serial Ata Problem topic (http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...ght=serial+ata)
... could it be the case?
Or are my HDs corrupted?
Or am I simply just a complete newbie messing around?

Help will be greatly appreciated,
thanks.