My vote is this is an Occam's razor type of problem. Try burning the ISO at a lower speed. Sometimes, especialy with a "cheaper" CD burner, they make lots of errors when burning large CD's

As for what an ISO is, I'll give you the painfully plain english answer. It's a snap-shot of a CD. Programs like Nero or Roxio use it to make a CD. There is csoftware out there for people with more know-how to mount it as a real CD and with the correc6t software, you computer can't tell the differnce between a Cd in a drive and an ISO on your had-drive.

As for making it bootable, you don't have to do anything, the .ISO for knoppix is a snap-shot of a bootable CD, so any CD you make with it will also be bootable.

Why are the important to linux? It's a universal standard that almost all CD burning programs recognize, and if you're just starting with the data, instead of an image ofthe CD, then making it bootable is more complicated and not all burning programs an do it.

As for people being patient, the last time I tried to switch to linux, the impatiens of the community was the biggest thing that made me give up. But not so here. I have been nothing but impressed with how helpfull people are, so keep post, (be sure you search first) and those who allready know more will help you and as I learn I will help newcommers as well. That's how a good community forum works.