Machine knitter in distress

I have put the three images in this post as links so you can see them a a better size - I'd have had to shrink them for blogger.

Photo 1 - Initial cause of distress is that I can't get the machine to cast on. I have tried fiddling with the various settings but it just keeps missing loops. What am I doing wrong?

Photo 2 - These are the settings on the carr…