can not get poor mans install to boot

[kl522]

fromhd=/dev/hda3/knoppix bootfrom=/knoppix/*.iso config=scan home=scan

Firstly, the good news portion. You have done all that is required by the boot loader.
What you did not do correct is only the second part, the copying of knoppix files.

It appears to me that you are copying the raw image of knoppix as a *.iso. I read somewhere someone has modified the minirt.gz to get this configuration working, but that's a 60 over pages of posts which I don't have the patience to follow.

What you should have copied, is the 'KNOPPIX' directory, as it appeared to you when you mount the CD/DVD. The directory has a few important files, one of them is KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX, another is the folder KNOPPIX/modules, and a few htmls/pictures.

Also I have no idea of the significance of the cheatcode you used, as quoted above. Someone who is familiar with knoppix cheatcode can help explain that. But I think they are not necessary. You can remove them. As far as I know knoppix auto detects the presence of knoppix files, until someone proves me wrong that the autodetect is flawed.

[mrbojangles]

Ok, I cleaned up the cheatcodes and copied the knoppix/knoppix folder to the hard drive hda3. It looks like it does a scan over and over like this:
/dev/sda1
/dev/sda2
/dev/sda3
until it stops with: 'could not mount disk to /mnt-system. Starting debugging mode...'

I am confused between the fromhd= and bootfrom= cheatcodes. Do I need them? I feel that I am close to getting it to boot, but need some clues.