Trying to boot Knoppix 3.3 from HD on a machine with Suse 9.

I have copied all Knoppix files to a partition on the hard drive. This partition does not have anything else on it. I also copied the files from boot.img to the root dir of the partition.

I added the following to /etc/lilo.conf and ran lilo:

image = /mnt/cu/vmlinuz
append="lang=en apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=791 quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix"
label = Knoppix
initrd = /mnt/cu/miniroot.gz
root = /dev/hda3
vga = 0x31a


When I ask LILO to boot "Knoppix" the little penguin shows up on the screen (so LILO did find the initial boot files). Then the booter tries to find the cdrom (there is no disk in the drive). It hangs for a while doing that, then some stuff flickers by to fast to read. After that I get the "Can't find Knoppix filesystem" error.

I also used boot.img to create a boot floppy. The same thing happens when I use that to boot.
I have successfully created modified Knoppix CDs so the files I put on the HD are OK.

How can I get the system to boot from a HD partition?

If I read your post correctly, i'd say you copied all the files from a Knoppix cd to a ahdrdrive partition, and then used lilo to boot the kernel image. Well go to http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/HdBasedHowTo to learn how to make it work, but then Knoppix will not function as a full GNU/Linux system, just as a live-cd with better performance (i.e. you can't install anything). If you want a real Knoppix install, it would be better to use one of the Installation scripts. They are knx-hdinstall and knoppix-installer. (i've never used knoppix-installer, so don't ask me anything on that, when I did my Knoppix hdinstall (deleted it, windoze needed more space) Knoppix didn't have the knoppix-installer script.)

You read that correctly. I do not want to install Knoppix to the HD, I want to speed up my experiments with custom configs, and save a few CD blanks.

I have read that HowTo at length. It did provide some helpful information, but it is also chock full of notes that explain that the procedures described don't work ;-(

My question is: How does the booter figure out where to get the KNOPPIX directory from? According to what I have read the booter is supposed to scan all HD partitions and use the one that has a KNOPPIX directory. This does not appear to work.

Maybe somebody could point me to the machinery that is supposed to do this? I'm not too clear exactly where these parts live.

I fugured out what the problem was. I had formatted the partition as reiserfs. The booter did not like this. I reformatted the partition as ext2. All is well now.