Syslinux - Jul 2008 - Problems booting syslinux off of USB flash drive with dell Intel D815EEA

I am attempting to install Gentoo on my cdless machine using the
thumbdrive as a boot device.  The motherboard is an Intel D815EEA, and
is the latest firmware revision (at least on the BIOS).  I believe I
have done everything right, but it tells me I have unknown keywords in
my syslinux.cfg and corrupt kernel images.

The steps I have followed are thus:

1) Starting with a 4GB flash device,  repartitioned drive to have 2GB
FAT16 partition.  Set flag to boot.
2) format drive fat16
3) dded /usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin onto drive
4) copy all files from boot CD onto drive.
5) moved contents of isolinux directory into root of drive
6) renamed 'isolinux.cfg' to 'syslinux.cfg'
7) renamed 'memtest86' to 'memtest'
8) ran 'syslinux /dev/sdb1' (and also tried 'sylinux -s')
9) unmounted drive and placed into machine.

The message displayed at boot is:
---
SYSLINUX 3.53 Debian-2007-12-11 CBIOS [...]
Unknown keyword in syslinux.cfg.
Could not find kernel image: linux
---

If I type 'gentoo' into the boot prompt, I receive:

---
Invalid or corrupt kernal image.
---

The syslinux.cfg in question is:
---
default gentoo
timeout 150
prompt 1
display boot.msg
F1 kernels.msg
F2 F2.msg
F3 F3.msg
F4 F4.msg
F5 F5.msg
F6 F6.msg
F7 F7.msg

label gentoo
  kernel gentoo
  append root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc  dokeymap looptype=squashfs
loop=/image.squashfs  cdroot initrd=gentoo.igz vga=791

label gentoo-nofb
  kernel gentoo
  append root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc  dokeymap looptype=squashfs
loop=/image.squashfs  cdroot initrd=gentoo.igz


label memtest86
  kernel memtest
---
All newlines are duplicated exactly.  Any help you can give me on this
would be greatly appreciated.  Doubtless, I'm overlooking something
silly.