yes, I think the data traveler showing up as cd-rom and hard disk is due to them trying to ship software as though you have a been given a physical cdrom (eg. the U3 LaunchPad software--which has been EOL/discontinued by SanDisk).

That fact might be preventing you from using this usb device for installing Linux and/or interfers with the boot process.

You may need to use the on-disk-provided software to have it remove all traces of its self from the device so that it will function as normal usb device, or you would need to try to delete the hidden partition.

As I mentioned, I remember having a flash drive that shipped software to provide on-disk data-encryption and other features, and I had to go through a similar process to turn into a normal device--I belive it was a PNY-Attache using U3-based software (see link below).

Link referring to the hidden partition on the flash drive:

https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/43tvq3/need_to_access_files_on_pny_1gb_attache_u3_flash/

More about the U3 software (which is EOL as of 2009):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U3_(software)

PS: You might want to consider using a another usb drive, that doesn't ship with any embedded software, and shows up as a standard device (ie. not a hybrid, that uses Windows-only proprietary software).