USB booting :: Floppy issues

So, this should be a very simple problem, yet I can't figure out what it could possibly be.

I have a very old laptop. I can run DSL from a live-CD just fine...it's delightful. But I want to use this pendrive for 3 different computer: My desktop, my laptop, and my lab computer (college). I can get the pendrive with the ZIP formatting to work on my desktop; that's what I'm using right now as I post this.

My laptop, however, is too old to support direct booting. Also, I can't (shouldn't) go in and mess with the boot settings on my school's computer. So I'm trying to use a boot floppy for both of those devices.

When I try to use the boot floppy on my laptop, I keep getting the following error...

Boot failed: please change disks and press a key to continue.

...immediately following the "boot:" prompt. When I change my desktop's settings to boot from floppy rather than USB, I get the same problem...

I made two different floppies, and have reformatted each several times, thinking that I made the image wrong, but I still can't get it to work. Sometimes it will not even get past the first line..."SYSLINUX 2.04" before it even says "Copyright © H. Peter Anvin". All it says is "boot failed" and it will try again when I hit enter. Endlessly.

I must be missing something obvious. Please help.

Thank you.

How did you make the floppy?
You can make one from dsl menu Tools section.
Or at a root prompt type dslinstall

Using the standard boot floppy boot with
dsl fromusb

Using the usb floppy will only scan usb devices

Or you can use the cdrom and boot to pendrive with

dsl fromhd=/dev/sda1

I had made my floppies both through the tools section in DSL LiveCD and by typing "install" at the boot prompt. But now...well...um...it works.

I've got a nice stack of floppies beside me which all failed to boot. So I got a fresh never-before-in-a-drive floppy and formatted that as a USB boot floppy. It functioned where all the others failed. Apparently I have a half-dozen disks which just happen to be damaged in some way...what are the chances...heh...

So sorry for wasting your time. Thank you, anyway.

original here.