thanks zentu,

i got it working. when i ran it with "knoppix26 noscsi" or "linux26 noscsi" i was getting pretty far but seemed to be hanging up when it got to looking for things to add to /etc/fstab

if i leave it running for a few minutes, it eventually does boot though. its just really slow for some reason. it took it a full minute or two looking like it had locked up. but i was patient finally and it loaded.

thanks!