I have successfully used Damn Small Linux from a mini-CDR/CD-RW.USB Lexar JumpDrive,Embedded-QEMU on Win XP,from hdd booting from a floppy and also mini-CDR,also used a SimpleTech CF card in a usb card reader.
The most important thing is to check your downloaded .iso to be sure it hasn't been corrupted, compare the listed md5 sum with that of your d'loaded
.iso.
Then if everything checks out you then "burn" the .iso to the disc and not just "copy" it to disc.There should be a selection for creating it in your burning software.
Once you have succeeded with the disc creation and can boot from it you'll be on your way.You can then open the disc and copy all of the files to your usb device and go to the DSL repository and grab the USB boot .iso that you write to a floppy using "Rawrite" then you can boot your USB stick from a floppy.
Not all computers can boot from usb and you may also have to set your BIOS to the device you want to boot from ie: floppy,cdrom,hdd,zip drive etc.
And one last thing that will help is to use a CD/RW to burn your image so as not to make "coasters" during the learning process(speaking from exp here)  |