Just curious... can you type
fdisk -l /dev/hda
and put the output here?
Also, ...how many hard disks are in the machine?

At least you are logged in as root... so you should be able to add your username to the /etc/sudoers file... but that won't help you out that much. You are already superuser, so there is no need to use sudo in front of your commands. That is for when you are logged in as an ordinary user.... such as the knoppix user account.

Also... you should only type init 2 when you are in kde(or any gui you have chosen)... and init 5 when you are at that root@compaq prompt.