I forgot to mention that I can access this DVD just fine on another machine, so it's probably the hardware.

Anyway, the way Knoppix makes sense to me is two possible ways:

1) Carrying the DVD (and a CD for old machines) around with a pen drive, so I can boot in any machine (this implies generally not having a boot loader), or

2) While working at home, booting off the hard drive. As long as I can get that stuff in the machine from my local network, I don't care if my CD/DVD won't boot it. So I don't need SBM to coax the drive there either.

However I have been playing with IPUG's grub4dos thing, at least for the boot off HD (which ain't working very well either - see adjacent thread). Aren't computers fun?