The 9999 problem is due to lilo not working. You can reinstall lilo with:
boot from cd
open console
sudo su
mount -o dev /dev/hdXY /mnt/hdXY (where XY is the drive/partition of your knoppix install)
chroot /mnt/hdXY
lilo -v
Ctrl-d to exit from chroot
BINGO! Thanks! I'm back in business!