I'm running a windows 2000 system, and recently learned that Knoppix doesn't like Fat32 or NTFS partitions at all, and I don't like the idea of messing with my Windows disk after I trashed it once and luckily reinstalled it from a Norton Ghost image. After some experimentation, I think I have found a solution, but I need some feedback about 1t.

1. Knoppix has two "cheatcodes" TOHD & FROMHD which allow you to move an image of the knoppix cd into a Windows Folder ( not a persistent home directory, or a linux partition). I Ran Knoppix TOHD=/dev/hda1 to create that folder on my windows system, and windows sees it as just another folder. I can delete it if I want and have no problem there.

2. To Use this feature, I put the Knoppix CD into the CD drive, at the boot prompt type "knoppix fromhd=/dev/hda1" and the kernel starts up. About 10 seconds into the boot, right after inspecting for USB devices, I see a notce in Green that the kernel is "Accessing Knoppix Cdrom at /dev/hda1", and the boot sequence switches to the hard drive. I can take aout the CDrom and use the cd drive for whatever I want. From what I can tell, Knoppix is using the first hard drive(windows 2000), as a read only CDrom , so the chances of trashing that are remote.

3. To explore linux, I have hooked up an old 4.3 gig drive in a USB enclosue which Knoppix sees as /dev/sda1. I used the QTParted program to format 2GB as and active ext2 parition, and 1gb as a Linux Swap file /dev/sda2. I then used the Knoppix Configure program to create a "Persistent home directory" on the entire sda1 parition (no encryption) , then right clicked on the drive image on the desktop and changed the permissions to read/write.

4. Now I put in the knoppix cd , wait for the boot prompt, type "knoppix fromhd=/dev/hda1 home=/dev/sda1" and when knoppix accesses /dev/hda1 as a cdrom, I get a 1 gb swap file and a 2gig storage drive on the USB drive.

5. To test this out , I cranked up the Konqueror browser, used Google to find the Firefox Web Browser, downloaded it from Mozilla as a tarball to the Home foleder, extracted it to a folder I made called downloads, installed it, and added it to the KDE desktop next to the konqueror icon. After rebooting, Firefox is still there, as are my bookmarks and my printer config. HOORAH !

6. If I want to use MIcrosoft Office XP, or my Outlook Contacts, I just pull the Knoppix CD out of the CD drive, restart the system, and I come right back up Windows 2000.

7. If I were you, I'd invest $30 in an external USB drive enclosure and try rhis out with your old drive. Depending on how much ram you have, you could cut the swap file down to 512mb or maybe even 256mb and be fine.