ad 1) You can try to start your Knoppix - with persistent memory in an overlay file - without activating the persistent memory (cheatcode: knoppix noimage). To get access to the content of the persistent memory you have to create a directory on a partition with available free space; I used in this example '/mnt/repair'. Start in a terminal:
Code:
su
mkdir /mnt/repair
losetup /dev/loop1 /mnt-system/KNOPPIX/knoppix-data.img
mount /dev/loop1 /mnt/repair
Copy all of '/mnt/repair' to partition#2 of the other USB stick you've already prepared to use persistent memory in an overlay partition.

Don't forget to shutdown your stick with:
Code:
umount /dev/loop1
losetup -d /dev/loop1
ad 2) http://www.wp-schulz.de/summary/summary-backup.html
And why does the script use this "ReiserFS" filesystem, anyway? From the little I've read about it, development on it has ground to a halt.
ReiserFS is a proven Linux filesystem since many years; which development do you exspect?