I think rickenbacherus is correct. You really don't need to do a reinstall for this. It is true that after your hard drive install knoppix-autoconfig is no longer run. Hotplug should still be working though and that is all you really need to have usb devices detected. Of course you may then need to do a little editing on /etc/fstab but with a little reading you should be able to manage this pretty well. Post back if you need more help.