Boot stalls at black screen - video controller problem?

The ubcd4win forum suggested I try Knoppix to recover data from a badly behaved hard drive on a Dell XP laptop. Ubcd4win doesn't recognize the hd. I created a cd with the latest Knoppix version-works in an older desktop fine, but seems to choke on something in the hardware configuration of the laptop.
Symptoms:
Regular boot- gets as far as the set up, and loads hardware but then goes to a black screen with no mouse or kb access.
Cheat codes: "no3d screen=1024x768" one helped it get further along but still not far enough.
I don't know enough about Knoppix to report the contents of the last screen-[white text on a black background and all kinds of references I don't understand].
It also mentioned I should try another cheat code for the graphics module: xmodule = whatever my video card is.

Didn't try that yet because something seems to be awry with the video card on the laptop- when I did an XP reinstall on another hd, I can't change the resolution. The video controller in device manager indicates a bad (or no) driver but won't let me update it.

So I'm wondering if I should pursue the video card angle and get that straightened out first.

Did try a search but new to Knoppix so not sure if any of the posts I found were the same thing or not.

I straightened out the driver problems so now the machine is running XP like new.....but still Knoppix stalls at the same point.