i've had no trouble with previous knoppix, so i'm wondering if someone can point me to a FAQ or bug page that might shine some light. the CD does work in other machines.

on Box1 knoppix fails at the second screen. you get the very first screen where you can hit return to enter. hit enter, and things start. next should be the second screen with the pretty colours and small text, except i get a blank screen instead. on all three monitors. this will continue as long as you care to gaze at it.

Box1 is Duron GA-7ZXE with Nvidia GeForce 2 MX/MX 400 agp dual monitor card, and some plain old pci ATI Rage for the third monitor. knoppix 3.1 boots this with no problem.

on Box2 i get to the second screen, just not very far into it. knoppix scans for usb, and enables ide devices (all of 5 lines) then we get a nice red,

"
Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem, sorry.
Dropping you to a (very limited) shell.
Press reset button to quit.
"

then knoppix lists six of the commands available and gives me prompt.

Box2 is Asus P3B-F with agp Nvidia Vanta/Vanta LT.

i'm using both boxes with a KVM. shouldn't matter, and works fine with knoppix 3.1, but i'm reaching for straws here.

only other thing i can think to say is 3.4 did run on Box2 before i rebuilt it with different drives. i reset bios to default, and have only adjusted that to ensure its first CDROM is part of the boot sequence. the boxes run their respective windows with no trouble.

i'm quite baffled.

suggestion, anyone? thanks.