Running Knoppix on a hard drive connected to usb

I am a bit struggling to get Knoppix to run out of my external hard drive.

My config is the following :

-Compaq Armada M700
-W2000 installed on the internal HDD. I don't want to have any change on that drive > That's my office stuff...
-I have an external HDD connected to the M700 with a USB2 connection
-I can boot the laptop either using the internal HDD, the CDROM, or the floppy.
Ultimately, my goal would be to insert a floppy with a bootloader, and then run Knoppix from the external HDD.

I am able to run Knoppix from the CD. The external HDD is well recognized, and mounted when I run from the CD.
I have tried to install Knoppix on the external HDD. Everything is fine until I restart using the floppy. Then I get a kernel panic. It seems that there is no USB support in the floppy.

Do I need to rebuild a kernel? I tried to understand the document about booting from a USB key, but the config is slightly different. I boot from a floppy, but must load the USB drivers to get access to the system, on SDA1....

Any help?

You're getting a kernel panic because no USB drivers are loaded, so the USB HD is not mounted. (and if the HD is not mounted, impossible to find the kernel that is on the HD!).

You should be able to use the CD to do what you want to do - check out http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6463. That thread is for firewire, but it's exactly the same principle for USB.

Just before switching to run level 5 ('init 5'), you might want to do a 'swapon -a' ('swapon -s' to check). Post back if you have any problems.

HTH

p.s. one alternative is to remaster, as described in http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8471