mystmn:

Here is the link to the cheatcode section of the wiki: http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Cheat_Codes

The following is the information on "failsafe" contained therein as you requested:

failsafe:
Boot with (almost) no hardware detection
# cat /proc/cmdline
ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us vga=normal atapicd
nosound noapic noacpi pnpbios=off acpi=off nofstab noscsi
nodma noapm nousb nopcmcia nofirewire noagp nomce nodhcp
xmodule=vesa initrd=minirt.gz BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix BOOT_IMAGE=linux

Try the cheatcodes listed individually or in some combination until you find the one that does the trick.

It's just a process of elimination and many trials and many errors, until you find the right codes.

One other cheatcode I do not see listed for Knoppix is "knoppix noddc". It will then skip detection of the monitor. I'm not sure if it works in Version 5.0.1, but it's worth a try if it is a monitor detection issue.

It might be worthwhile trying a previous version of Knoppix, like V 4.0.2. Some people have been reporting troubles with 5.0.1 and sometimes an older version proves to be better on some hardware. There were many changes from 4.0.2 to 5.0.1. It might be that the next release will resolve some of the issues. The change that may be at the root of your troubles, could be that 4.0.2 used Xfree86 and 5.0.1 uses Xorg 7.0. You might also want to look for additional documentation at www.X.org.