is there a way i can change like sda1 to the active partition with knoppix live cd, i effed up and didn't configure grub and set the linux partition as active and now i can't boot into linux or windows, i figure changing the active partion of sda3 which is the windows xp installed one, it'll reboot in that, so in knoppix what to do?

Suggestion 1) if you ever get your OSs booting again, make a boot floppy/cd of each so that you don't have this problem again.
Suggestion 2) use www.google.com/linux or the Knoppix FAQ to search for info regarding your specific problems.
Suggestion 3) google up a copy of Knoppix cheatcodes. Many problems with Knoppix can be solved just by entering the proper boot parameters.
Suggestion 4) google up a search on the keywords 'knoppix grub' (without quotes) and see what turns up.

thanks for the post, let me be more specific, i have a 180 gb hard drive, i parittioned 50 gb to linux and installed knoppix 3.8 on it, everything was fine, i rebooted and was still under windows, no lilo or grub thing? to dual boot or pick which os to boot under, so i set the 50gb partition to active and then rebooted, and the grub prompt came up, i did the google thing, i didn't understand it, there was like so many directions you had to do in the first place to follow it..so now i dont' know, i have recovery disks, but they're a pain and take atleast 12 hours to redo everything, i thought that could be a last ditch effort

help ):

heh k.