This is due to the Vairo R505's docking station using IEEE1394. The DVD rom drives are firewire. By default knoppix kernel does not have have this on boot. You need to use a knoppix variant such as

Helix :: http://www.e-fense.com/helix/

or

Overclockix :: http://overclockix.octeams.com/

Now if one of you brave souls tries overclockix please let me know if and how you got PCMCIA to run.