As you will no doubt see in a few seconds I am totally clueless when it comes to ISO files (creating and using) so I will be needing a lot (and I mean lot) of help. I have a CD (Memorex CD-R, 700MB) with Knoppix on it. It is 694 MB in size and I need to know if I create image file with this or what. I have tried to have it boot but nothing happens--just skips over the CD and goes to XP. Sorry to sound so ignorant but just trying to get a handle on this if possible. Thanks in advance. By the way the laptop (Toshiba Satellite Pro) is set to boot from CD first.

(1) You must burn the iso image into the CD for it to boot. Direct copying won't work. It is a standard function available in a CD burner software like Nero.

(2) You must instruct the Bios to boot the CD drive first and before the hard disk.

+1 for saikee ;-)

See http://home.nycap.rr.com/danleff/burningiso.html

More technical but interesting for after burning cases
http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Wikile...msAfterBurning

Your CD presumably was made FROM an .iso file--thus you do need to make an .iso

Can you mount the CD and read the contents? Be sure is has MANY files on it. If it just has the one .iso, then you fell in the common trap mentioned by saikee.