"Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem, sorry"

I'm sure you heard about this message all the time, but I'm getting it, and so far, all my research strongly suggests that it's because I'm using a SATA optical drive (a DVD-RW, to be precise).

Can anyone confirm this? I checked my BIOS and there isn't an option which allows for IDE emulation (someone said this worked for them on another forum).

If it's true that knoppix won't boot off a SATA drive, then does anyone know of any work around for this?

i have tried
Code:
knoppix hdc=cdrom hdc=noprobe
but that didn't work.