Problem solved! I commented out initrd in /boot/grub/menu.lst and no more errors at boot. Thank you very much nalini for your help!

So now I've set up an HP (Compaq nc6220) laptop dual booting between Knoppix 5.3 and Windows 7 RC via a custom Grub menu.
I downloaded and used GParted (http://gparted.sourceforge.net) to partition my hard drive which worked great.

A big thanks to the members of the Knoppix Forum for the helpful details in their posts. It helped make my first foray in Linux/Open Source
an enjoyable and productive experience. Tappy