Dell Dimension 4550 can't boot off of USB drive.

I created boot floppy on my SanDisk Cruzer 1G USB with the HP Drive
Key Boot Utility. It's an image of a regular 98se boot floppy from
bootdisk.com. It works on everything but my Dells. When I boot my Dell
Dimension 4550 it says

Disk I/O error
Replace the disk, and press any key

There is a setting called Hard-Disk Drive Sequence that says
1 USB Device
2 System BIOS boot devices

I have that set on 1


Then there is a Boot Sequence setting that has

1 IDE CD-ROM Device
2 Hard Disk Drive C:
3 Floppy device (not installed)


I've tried many permutatons of these settings and I still can't get it
to boot. I've flashed the newest BIOS A08 and still no joy.

I've downloaded PenDrive Linux and that boots fine.

The Win 98 boot floppy image will not boot. Ever. I do not know how to make up
a bootable USB stick with the Win 98 stuff on it. There are how-tos out there
on the internet, but Micro$oft does not make it easy. Like PenLinux and other
live Linux distros do... Ben Myers

On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:22:27 -0400, alizeruos@wqw.rr.com wrote:

>
>I created boot floppy on my SanDisk Cruzer 1G USB with the HP Drive
>Key Boot Utility. It's an image of a regular 98se boot floppy from
>bootdisk.com. It works on everything but my Dells. When I boot my Dell
>Dimension 4550 it says
>
>Disk I/O error
>Replace the disk, and press any key
>
>There is a setting called Hard-Disk Drive Sequence that says
>1 USB Device
>2 System BIOS boot devices
>
>I have that set on 1
>
>
>Then there is a Boot Sequence setting that has
>
>1 IDE CD-ROM Device
>2 Hard Disk Drive C:
>3 Floppy device (not installed)
>
>
>I've tried many permutatons of these settings and I still can't get it
>to boot. I've flashed the newest BIOS A08 and still no joy.
>
>I've downloaded PenDrive Linux and that boots fine.

The Win98SE Boot disks dont have a USB driver in the bood disk itself.
So you wont be able to boot off a USB drive unless your motherboard
can be set to emulate a floppy drive using a USB drive (I've seen some
Asus m/bs do this).

I guess this is why it works on all your machines, but not on your
dell....


Maybe you can try installing grub or another bootloader and try.