I finally figured out why I kept getting errors (see my question about bash). I have a Suse 8.1, Redhat 8 and Windows XP in a triple boot. I have 2 hard drives, the first drive holds my OS's while my second drive holds my data. I made the partitions on my second drive fat32 so that both linux and windows could read and write to them. I then thought that since it was a 60gb partition it would serveg great for a knoppix remaster. I forgot that fat32 won't preserve symlinks . After 3 nights of yelling at my computer I finally figured this out and am now in the middle of a successful knoppix remaster.

A word from the stupid: ALWAYS USE A LINUX PARTITION