The VERY first time I've even seen any LINUX, so be gentle...

After the first screen I press enter. Then I wait for hardware detection and after that red text announces: "Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem!" And something like "leaving you to a (very limited) shell." Then there's a list of commands available.

KNOPPIX is on a 700MB/80min CD burned out of ISO by NERO. One HDD ntfs, the other FAT32. The latter is at the moment unreadable by XP, hence the interest in LINUX. But KNOPPIX shouldn't need HDD, should it?

Should I somehow create some user account or something?

Man doesn't work and --help works for mount only.