From reading a lot of the discussions in this forum, I realize that I cannot create a persistent home file (knoppix.img) on an NTFS partition. Although it hasn't been stated, I am assuming this is because this file would be resized as needed by Knoppix, which would endanger my NTFS partition.

Unfortunately, my situation is that I only have an NTFS partition, and I cannot shrink it or change the drive in any way. So my question is, why can't I mount a file on the NTFS partition as its own partition (size is fixed) and then point to this new partition as the home directory?

I have a file on my NTFS partition that is formatted as ext2 that I use in a different Linux distribution (I can read and write to this file safely when running this Linux distribution because as a mounted partition, the size does not change.) Using the Knoppix live-CD version, I was able to mount this file as a partition and view the files within. But I could not write to the file. I am assuming that this is because the Knoppix Live-CD makes the NTFS partition read-only, and therefore my formatted file is also read only. Trying to mount as read/write caused an error.

Is there a way I can force the Live-CD to make the NTFS partition read-write, or at least make my formatted file read-write? Can I use GRUB or LILO to mount a file as a partition and then set home = that partition? I am sure with the smarts I have seen in this forum, someone can help me work a solution to this problem.

Thanks!
Matt