Quote Originally Posted by emnmnme
I did not mean to confound you, Miss Cuddler. Nor was it my intention to make unreasonable demands of the Knoppix forum's or your own computer knowledge since I thought I had a common "newbie" problem. In other words, I didn't expect any noodles to be seriously scratched. Thanks to all who have helped me so far.
I dont really think I helped, nor, in any way, am I able in this situation, other than to "probably" just make noise on this subject, that is what I was appologizing for, and for the fact that my posted response had nothing to do with your issue at hand...

Quote Originally Posted by emnmnme
Like I said, I can't find any files on my hard drive and there is no HDD icon on the desktop. What is my problem and what is the cause? Has this ever happened to anyone else before? What's a kernel?
Hmmm,

As for the question on "Has this ever happend to anyone else before?" -=- You can always try the Search Knoppix.net feature... If it is a common problem, you will get search results that could lead to a resolve, for your particular issue... ( see if "sata" comes up with anything )

As for the question on "What's a kernel?" -=- the word comes from the "Unix" days, which is what Linux is based on. The "kernel" is the smallest part of the Operating System, in which, its only purpose is to get a "ground-level" system to boot. After the kernel finishes, it then gets other things "added" to it, modules, that raise the system up from this ground-level. The analogy of that of a "popcorn kernel" that "pops" into a full popcorn ball... The "core" is that of the kernel, which is still there after the kernel has actually "popped" into popcorn, but has "grown" into something much more than the "kernel" was in the beginning.

I probably walked all over the analogies, and the history of Unix, and even Linux, by this, but, I think its a good explaination... ( time, and responses, will tell )