Now, it is clear that you have a really old kernel version.

I think that your only chance will be that the last Linux 2.6 kernel supports your SATA controller chip. In that case you would have to compile a Linux kernel from source that includes the support for cloop files used by Knoppix. Linux kernel sources are available at kernel.org.

The first thing you will need is the hardware configuration of your new computer system. You could run a recent Knoppix version and issue the command
Code:
sudo lspci
in order to get the PCI id of your SATA controller. Then, you will have to do some research to find out if there is any support for your SATA controller chip in the last Linux 2.6 kernel sources.

Another possibility could be the use of an IDE controller supported by Knoppix 4.0.2 and a PATA-SATA adapter to connect your HDD.