Syslinux - Feb 2006 - Trying to figure out why my Cruzer Micro 512"MB" won't boot.

Office Depot ran a deal with a Cruzer Micro 512MB (actually, around
488MiB) for about $20 after a rebate I may not see for months.  I saw
the ad yesterday and stopped by pretty well first thing this afternoon
to snatch one up while they were still there since I've been having to
make do with two 256MB drives to hold all the data I neded since one
drive couldn't hold enough (though I must admit my rescue disc type
stuff takes up most of that space that made me need another flash
drive to hold it all.)  I really wanted to completely consolidate
everything into one flashdrive and just sell the old drives or
something.  Unfortunately, it just doesn't seem to want to boot.  I
used the trick highlighted in the readme file on the fake USB-ZIP
method because my bios is among those which can't boot a USB-HDD. 
This method has worked on my previous 256MB flashdrives and my bios,
so I had good reason to believe it should have worked on this one.  I
get no errors and windows and linux both work flawlessly with it, so
the only conclusions I can draw is that either the bios absolutely
does not recognize it as a valid boot device so skips it completely
(which might explain why it instantly goes straight to the harddrive
with no visible delay) or that the drive itself is not properly
working as a bootable drive.

Any idea if it's the drive or the bios?  Either way, is there anything
I can do at all, or am I stuck having to keep carrying two flashdrives
still?

On 2/6/06, Nazo <nazosan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Office Depot ran a deal with a Cruzer Micro 512MB (actually, around
> 488MiB) for about $20 after a rebate I may not see for months.  I saw
> the ad yesterday and stopped by pretty well first thing this afternoon
> to snatch one up while they were still there since I've been having to
> make do with two 256MB drives to hold all the data I neded since one
> drive couldn't hold enough (though I must admit my rescue disc type
> stuff takes up most of that space that made me need another flash
> drive to hold it all.)  I really wanted to completely consolidate
> everything into one flashdrive and just sell the old drives or
> something.  Unfortunately, it just doesn't seem to want to boot.  I
> used the trick highlighted in the readme file on the fake USB-ZIP
> method because my bios is among those which can't boot a USB-HDD.
> This method has worked on my previous 256MB flashdrives and my bios,
> so I had good reason to believe it should have worked on this one.  I
> get no errors and windows and linux both work flawlessly with it, so
> the only conclusions I can draw is that either the bios absolutely
> does not recognize it as a valid boot device so skips it completely
> (which might explain why it instantly goes straight to the harddrive
> with no visible delay) or that the drive itself is not properly
> working as a bootable drive.
>
> Any idea if it's the drive or the bios?  Either way, is there anything
> I can do at all, or am I stuck having to keep carrying two flashdrives
> still?
>
I'm sorry, I just remembered I could use my grandmother's computer to
test on another system.  Her's is an Intel chipset (can't recall which
one) P4 system made around the time they switched from RDRAM to DDR
SDRAM (sorry, can't be more specific off the top of my head.)  Anyway,
it too lacks the USB-HDD option in the boot options, but, also has the
USB-ZIP, so I tried my drive on it too.  While mine simply skips the
drive almost like it's not even there, hers freezes up on it.  I think
this proves the problem is more specific to the drive itself than my
bios.  I guess this means I'm stuck, but, just to be sure I would like
to ask if anyone knows of anything that might be done?