HFS Plus mystery

I have looked at many posts and lists but haven't yet found a definative answer.
I have both CD-Rom's and a LaCie usb drive that are formatted in HFS PLUS.
I have the HFSPLUS module and can modprobe it. BUT I can't get linux (knoppix 3.4 kernel 2.4.26 or 2.6.6
to read the damn things!
I have tried the mount -t hfsplus /dev/scd0 /mnt/mac command
I have tried hpmount /dev/scdo /mnt/mac I have created the directory mac ( and many others )
I have edited fstab every way I know.
The last error in kernel 2.6 was No valid Apple_HFS partition found (unknown error 4294967295)
A recent attempt at mounting the usb drive produced this:
root@ixan:/home/john# modprobe hfsplus
root@ixan:/home/john# mount -t hfsplus /dev/sda2 /mnt/LaCie/
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda2,
or too many mounted file systems
root@ixan:/home/john# hpmount /dev/sda2 /mnt/LaCie/
*** Warning: You are about to open '/dev/sda2' for writing ***
*** Do you really want to do that ? (y/n) ***
y
hpmount: /dev/sda2: Neither Wrapper nor native HFS+ volume header found (Unknown error 4294967295)
root@ixan:/home/john# modprobe hfs
root@ixan:/home/john# hmount -r /dev/sda2 /mnt/LaCie/
Usage: hmount source-path [partition-no]
root@ixan:/home/john#
Is it at all possible to read a HFS+ source from linux?