mm similar Idea here
I have an 800mhz Laptop
with 128MB Ram
and one dead hard drive controller on the mainboard.
Knoppix will boot and run fine from CD, detects everything ok and runs reasonably well , takes a long time to load open office etc , but no real worries as otherwise the Laptop is a bookend.
I wondered is it possible for me to get hold of an external usb drive - 2.5" or 3.5" external HDD and somehow install Knoppix to that and set the pc to boot to the external usb drive from the off bypassing the guts of the laptop entirely.