trying to make partitions on a pen drive using knoppix

Hi,
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I have been tryin gto make partitions and ext3 and VFAT file systems on a pen drive.
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I would like to ultimately install Debian using debootstrap
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There are a number of odd symptoms I hadn't seen before. When I boot via cheat code "knoppix init 3" and run "fdisk -l /dev/sda*", I get, what to me looks like the drive is reporting on 2 different partition tables present on the same drive:
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Disk /dev/sda: 2029 MB, 2029518848 bytes
17 heads, 32 sectors/track, 7286 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 544 * 512 = 278528 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 7287 1981936 b W95 FAT32

Disk /dev/sda1: 2029 MB, 2029502464 bytes
63 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1014 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 3906 * 512 = 1999872 bytes

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1p1 ? 199216 491461 570754815+ 72 Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(357, 116, 40) logical=(199215, 34, 11)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(357, 32, 45) logical=(491460, 44, 51)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda1p2 ? 43188 538843 968014120 65 Novell Netware 386
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(288, 115, 43) logical=(43187, 17, 47)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(367, 114, 50) logical=(538842, 14, 42)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda1p3 ? 478721 974376 968014096 79 Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(366, 32, 33) logical=(478720, 18, 30)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(357, 32, 43) logical=(974375, 14, 39)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda1p4 ? 738782 738796 27749+ d Unknown
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(372, 97, 50) logical=(738781, 41, 25)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(0, 10, 0) logical=(738795, 54, 33)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order
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Now, if I run "startx" and run then fdisk, I get a clean:
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Disk /dev/sda: 2029 MB, 2029518848 bytes
17 heads, 32 sectors/track, 7286 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 544 * 512 = 278528 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 7287 1981936 b W95 FAT32
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Which I can mount, write to and unmount without any problems.
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I have also found problems, when I boot the box with the pen drive inserted in the USB slot. Knoppix reports:
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There was an error setting up inter process communication for KDE

Could not read network list
/root/.DCOPserver_Knoppix_0
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Please, check that the dcopserver is running
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Another type of weird mistake I find is:
Not enough memory to start kde! (at least 82 required!)
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but running "free" gives me:
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total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2075228 160036 1915192 0 7564 94096
-/+ buffers/cache: 58376 2016852
Swap: 0 0 0
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I do have 2Gb of mostly underused ram in my box.
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How can I solved this problems?
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Albretch