I'm very much a newbie myself, as you'll see from my recent posts...

Check out this thread which explained to me finally how to 'pivot' the root onto my firewire drive

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=35700

are you currently able to use your firewire drive with Knoppix CD 3.3? if so then you know enough to be able to install Knoppix to your firewire hdd and then to 'boot' from it using the Knoppix CD. post here (or start a new thread) if you have any specific questions or really need a step-by-step.

p.s. I have to use a firewire hdd as my laptop no longer recognises the internal hdd (and the problem is more with the laptop itself, I cannot just replace the hdd) and I have to pivot the root as the BIOS only lets me boot from cd-rom or floppy.

HTH