Also if your ubuntu cd is desktop version you can just let it boot all the way to desktop where it'll have 2 icons "examples" &
"install".
Under examples you can see your drives and mount them.

Well, given that I'm attempting to use Knoppix at the moment and I can't even get to the point of logging in, I don't see this as helping much.

I don't want to use the cd beyond installation. It doesn't help me that I can boot off the cd with Ubuntu.

I'll have to check the burner on the laptop I was using to know for sure, but I just left it at whatever the default was. If you're thinking it was a bad burn, I suppose it's possible, but I've tried many things on this system, and nothing has worked. I've also burned other things with this laptop with no issues in the past as well.

All of your tools are there.
Your terminal and package manager everything are under
/usr/share/applications
you'll also have access to your system logs.

What log files am I looking for when I try these things later?

I am presently on my ubuntu cd it has network it has internet and access to making all the changes necessary to fix machine

I'd like to see /var/log/syslog and the output of dmesg.

I can only get you to the point of being able to access everything, once you have access there are a lot of people who can guide you as to knowing what they need to see.

For example this1 posted by petebow4:
If you have wireless click on radio icon at top of screen and enter key.

Good luck
Wish I could help you more.

At what speed did you burn your disks?

Tried knoppix failsafe, same sort of issues as before. Sometimes errors during "Starting hardware abstraction layer", sometimes it'd go a littler farther and freeze, other times even before that.

Yours is pretty much the same response I gave when my install didn't work right and someone asked, "what speed was used when burning your CDs?" I ask you the third time because, had I considered the question, I would have saved weeks of struggling through overwhelming info, when the only real issue was the burn speed. I'm not being smart, but this may be the issue. The only burn speed that worked for me for these iso's is 4x. Did you burn at 4x?

No, I suspect not. You could have made it easier and just said you should try burning at 4x.

Your ubuntu cd if you installed using cd works, being that it installed os.