Hi JohnnyH:

Your solution has solved the USB & CD-ROM problem, HDs do not load, I get Permission denied as mentioned by you knoppix-hd-autoconfig has mount 'hd' = "root" or so. I actually like HD only being mounted by root . It is a blessing. Many Thanks.
Is root mount the reason GRUB takes too long to appear or mount?

The Linux HSF driver on my USb based HSF modem does not recognize the HSF modem although KInfoCenter lists it, I wonder why?

Thanks,
Alan