Man, I'm sorry I overlooked that you had plugged the hd to your desktop.
Then it is going to be much more easier.
Just boot knoppix with those options :
knoppix tohd=/dev/hdb1
It will copy the cd to hdb1
Please check before that you want to install to hdb1 (or you may just erase your windows partition). You just have to run knoppix normally to see if hdb1 is your laptop hard drive.
After that, you can plug the hd to your laptop again and boot knoppix from it. Then you may want to install another distro if you want from knoppix and the network.
I have this how to install ubuntu from knoppix :
http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/installatio...is_une_knoppix
Unfortunately it is in french, but I can translate if you need, or you can use any translator on the net.
(I keep insisting on ubuntu, because I found it to be the best distro for newbies, but I may be wrong and you may not like it).