MD 8088 wont boot a USB based OS

Hi Guys

I wonder if anyone else experiences the same problem as me and has a fix. I have an ageing PC from Medion with an MD8088 MB.

I want to boot an OS on a USB stick. I've failed to do this for years but was encouraged when someone said that Puppy Linux was easy to put on a USB stick. I downloaded a copy and burnt a live distro to CD and from there installed a copy on the USB stick.

I ensured the PC boot order had USB-HDD as the first in the list and rebooted.

Sure enough the system shutdown and rebooted. The light on the USB stick twinkled for a moment then ...... Windows started from the harddrive. I plugged the stick into my newly acquired ASUS One and it booted perfectly.

I suspect that the problem is I'm trying to boot from a USB-HDD but there isn't an option to boot from a USB-anything-else except a floppy or CD.

What might I have missed?

Thanks

 

Hmmmm .. I guess that, if the BIOS says it'll boot from a USB-HDD, it won't necessarily boot from USB pen drive though I'm at a loss to know what the difference is.

I have a USB HDD here - can a write a boot sector to it and avoid trashing its contents. Even if I could just boot DOS it would prove something.