Use one of the cheat codes at the boot prompt. F2 to see some of them. knoppix nodma might work out.
I am getting an error during boot. Knoppix initially sees the CD drive and HDD, giving their model ID, but after coming to the line: "Looking for CDROM in: /dev/scd0, it pauses for some time then the scd0 flips quickly through some other names and then I get the error: "Can't find Knoppix file ssytem, sorry. Dropping you to a (very limited) shell.
The CD works fine in another computer so I'm thinking that the problem may with this CD drive: Mitsumi FX320M
Any diagnosis or suggestions
Use one of the cheat codes at the boot prompt. F2 to see some of them. knoppix nodma might work out.
Thanx. The discussion section was off-line and the knoppix.org info that I found was in German. So, I googled knoppix cheats and found a copy elsewhere.
atapicd did the trick and it's running -- though very slowly on this computer. It's an old PII 350 w/ 96 MB RAM and a 32X CD drive. But it's the only one with enough idle time to experiment with and it's very similar to the computer that I'm considering installing Linux on and using as a file and e-mail server and as a portal to our DSL connection.

IBM System X3850-X5 Server w/4x Intel Xeon E7-4870 CPU , 512 GB DDR3 RAM,NO HDD
$1599.99
IBM 7915 AC1 M4 E27R704 Server Intel 2650V2 32GB RAM NO HDD w/ 2x 750w PSU
$225.00
Unused IBM 09P0037 MAINBOARD For RS/6000 7044-170 P-Series
$375.00
IBM EMC 091-000-091 17 Inch Rackmount LCD Keyboard KVM Console 03N7012
$109.99
IBM Power 8 S822L Server 8247-22L POWER8 Enterprise 256GB RAM 2x 00KV626 CPU
$999.99
IBM SYSTEM X3500 M3 SERVER 7380AC1 TOWER Server XEON E5620 8GB RAID SEE NOTES
$110.30
1 X IBM 720 POWER SERVER WITH 32 GB RAM
$344.97
IBM System x3550 M3 1U Server 2x Xeon E5645, 192GB RAM, 2x 300GB HDD (7944-AC1)
$150.00
IBM QRadar xx29 2x Xeon E5-2650v4 2x 900W PSU M5120 12x 3.5" Bay Server No RAM
$179.99
IBM ADP Server Type 7870 AC1 NO HDD | 128GB RAM PC3L | 2 x Xeon E5620
$199.99