Making a USB Flash disk bootable?

[SaSi]

I am trying to find a way to boot a laptop under MS-DOS.

The obvious way (floppy) is not feasible as this brand new laptop has no floppy support.

I have a spare USB flash disk that I thought of using as a boot device, but cannot find any way to format it like in the old days (format a:/s).

I have access to Windows 2000 and XP machines only but neither seems willing to format a flash disk as a boot device. I tried Ghost to use the flash disk as a boot disk but it seems to want a real floppy.

Does anyone have any bright idea?

[BJ_M]

http://www.weethet.nl/english/hardware_bootfromusbstick.php

or any of the 100 other hits on google

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=boot+usb+flash+&btnG=Google+Search

[SaSi]

Thanks. Isn't it funny when the obvious isn't the first idea ?

Unfortunatelly, the bootable USB stick now boots my two desktop machines but not the portable. It doesn't seem clever enough to boot from the USB stick or a bootable HD in a usb enclosure.

Next option is to create a bootable CD with Ghost on it. Let's see if I succeed there.