Actually, I just tried using the boot code you provided ... knoppix hangs right after the "Autoconfiguring devices" comes up. However, I have noticed several times that this has happened various times to me tonight when I tried to recreate what I did in expert mode, before it finally worked. Any ideas what would be causing this freeze?

An idea I had for why this was happening is: I have my PC connected to a router with 2 other PC's ... the freeze would always happen if one of the PC's wasn't booted. I tried booting the third PC and then Knoppix booted properly (using my expert mode of course) ... does this sound right to you?