syslinux error
 

I received help in this forum on how to get my usb flash drive partitioned correctly so that I could install damnsmalllinux on it. But I'm still stuck -- at the very last stage, which involves putting syslinux on the usb disk. When I run "syslinux /dev/sda" I get this:

/dev/sda: This doesn't look like a FAT filesystem
/dev/sda: Sector sizes other than 512 not supported

However, fdisk -l reports this:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 63 506016 6 FAT16

and parted reports this:

Minor Start End Type Filesystem Flags
1 0.031 494.187 primary fat16 boot

So at least two software packages agree that the system is indeed a fat system (and the check module of parted checks the partition as OK).

I can't find any help by Googling for the syslinux error, nor on the syslinux website.
I remember seeing somewhere that you can install the syslinux files by direct copying, and I can copy files to the disk directly.

Any suggestions?

I got the same problem!

Plug in your USB drive, but don't mount it.
Then, in Linux terminal, try this:

mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/sda1

*you can specify whichever device or partition you want (sdb1, sdb2, etc.)*

That will format it in FAT32, then go from where you were before. I assume that changing the "32" to a "16" would change it to FAT16...not sure, though.