To set a root password use sudo passwd then enter the password you would like to be set. When you just use the sudo cfdisk alone it will default to the first drive (hda). I have no experience with the pen drives but it looks like XP put some kind of strange formatting on there that linux does not like. Could you post the error from QTParted?


Just a thought have you tried to mount the pen drive from the console to see what the result is. eg. sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 and maybe even sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 just in case XP formatted with ntfs also try the other three drives (2-4) that are seen.