Thanks for your help. I've decided to go with an extra drive, Seagate 80 GB. Once I get Knoppix up and running, I'll trash Windows on the other drive and use it to play with Debian or Suse. FWIW - I had a WIN modem which of course doesn't work. Rather than mess around looking for and trying to install a driver, I bought a US Robotics serial modem # 5686E which works just fine.