first off, yes I'm a complete noob to linux etc... I'm not a noob to windows or computers in general.
Here's my issue. I can boot and run knoppix off of the cd just fine, when I try to copy it to the hd some things happen. First off the partition is formatted in FAT32 and is 2.5GB. Everything is fine when i use the boot "cheat" tohd=/dev/hda2 is starts to copy, everything here is smooth. Next it always gets to %66 and then stops copying, the cd drive slows down and I get a tranfer rate of 7.xxx kbsec. I've tried this multiple times thinking I did something wrong and it always starts slowing at %66 and by %67 I get an error message about not enough memory.

at first I wanted to load it into just the ram with the cheat toram and it also slows at %66. I have 768MB ram.

My first reaction is to think I have an incomplete cd, but i'm able to boot into knoppix just fine from the CD.

I'm lost and my googles and other searches aren't helping much. Any help for somebody looking to get away from microsoft for a change?