USB Power/Detection Knoppix 4.0.2 DVD

My hard drive recently corrupted some of its data and it won't boot into windows. Usually in this situation I use knoppix to get my data off. In the past this has worked great. However this time i've been having some USB trouble.

It goes sort of like this, If I plug in my usb key, mouse, hdd, etc. during boot up they will recieve power and be powered when knoppix starts up. This seems to get my mouse to work. However if I unplug any usb device or plug any new usb device in, the won't recieve power. So if I unplug my mouse plugging it back in won't make it start up again.

It doesn't detect my usb key even when its powered from being plugged in since boot up. It also doesn't help trying to replug it in, since it won't have any power.

Mounting doesn't seem to be the issue, i've tried every mounting resource and editing thing I can find and that doesn't seem to work. It just says "isn't a valid block device" which seeems to imply its not being detected at all.

Any help in this would be a godsend. I'm using a Dell 700m laptop if that helps at all and the rest of knoppix seems to be running as usual(I'm posting using the knoppix install). I would like to try a different version of knoppix but don't really have access to a burner right now.

~Ian