"I'm guessing that it'll read DSL and not Kanotix because of the different booting mechanisms. An HD install of DSL fails because it can't get access to the ntfs HD!"

DSL and Kanotix, as well as all other GNU/Linux distributions, necessarily use the same "boot mechanism".

Might I suggest that the Kanotix cd that you burnt is not good? The reason may be that the DSL image is considerably smaller than the Kanotix image. You may have achieved a good burn at a higher speed with the DSL image, but, not with the Kanotix image. Try a slower burn speed. I suggest as slow as possible.

What this has to do with an ntfs partition, you may wish to explain, as you will necessarily need to remove any existing partitions and filesystems and repartition your hard drive (unless you are looking to dual boot which is an entirely different animal). The installer will assist you with this.