I am installing Slackware 12 in verbose ("newbie") mode. It asked me to create a USB boot disk. (Good idea -- I have no floppy -- in case something ever happens to DVD.)
Edit: meaning USB flash stick, not hard drive

Almost immediately after I entered "Yes" it went to modem configuration. It gave no message like "boot device created" (or I didn't see it). Is a USB boot disk made that fast? Or does it need modem info and a few other things before it creates boot device?

I have to go to work, so I left the USB connected for now. My laptop is plugged in via converter/cord to a power strip/surge protector and on a pad with fan, so I am not worried about the laptop while at work.

I would recommend testing out the USB Drive, BUT WATCH OUT FOR THIS:

FIRST, in Linux, type:
where $DEVICE is the device used to boot linux (mine would be /dev/sda if I were to do that)

SECOND:
write the information in cfdisk to the USB device

THIRD:
check to be certain that the computer sees it (the USB stuff) as a boot option

I believe that it may require you to do that (marking the device), so that the computer can see it. I am unaware if Setup does this, but I may find out, but in any case, I recommend marking it bootable. The reason for this is so when the computer is checking the devices, if it sees your boot partition on the USB device, it will start it.

I hope this helps

Thanks, I will check that out a little later.

Flash is very fast in read and write. What would take a minute to write to a floppy would take maybe 3 seconds to write onto a USB flash drive.

It comes with its own little system that is only compatible with Windows. It allows you to actually install software (like, OpenOffice) and carry it around with you, so you can run it directly from the stick. It must be somehow protected so you can't overwrite it, or maybe you can overwrite it in Windows. I don't know.

But I can see where this would be useful (at school, esp. to carry Windows Journal viewer which is required if your instructor uses Journal files (".jnt"), and OpenOffice, etc.). The software must be specifically written for U3 devices. Anything that's not, at least you can carry around the installation file in the devices "Documents" folder. (I have 7-zip in there, I just like it much better than WinZip, and sometimes people package cross-platform files in ".tar" or ".bzip" format, so 7-zip just makes life easier.)

So I will probably just by a plain-old, non-U3 stick to use as a boot device. Darn! I was just at BestBuy today, but I wasn't thinking of that.
That's kind of what I figured, but you would think Setup would give me a message that the operation failed.

@ PenGUiN_6_1: Thanks for the instructions. I will use that after I re-partition and reinstall (decided to get rid of Windows now, at least off my laptop). I may not be able to do it in Setup. Oh, heck, I should just go back to BestBuy and see if it will do it in setup first, shouldn't I (in case I ever messed up my partition table), right? I should have thought of it while I was there!

Yes, I made sure I could boot from devices in this order: USB, CD/DVD, hard disk. I booted from Windows after using my Windows restore CD, and the U3 stuff was not overwritten.

To look at the partitions and reformat it using FAT. Then I believe you need to extract the image to the flash drive and use syslinux to make it bootable.

Sorry, I my login timed out, and when I logged in again, it didn't seem like the post was created! (But it was!)

The boot stick did not get created, the U3 system on the stick was not overwritten.

I don't have partition magic, but I should have thought of wiping out the existing filesystem on the USB with fdisk before re-doing my whole install to get rid of Windows. I tried formatting it through Windows, though, and it refused to access and format the USB stick because it was "protected". Slackware refused to access and format, but didn't give me an error message to notify me.

As to actually making the bootable USB stick, Slackware has the option in Setup (right before LILO configuration and installation, I believe).

Anyway, I kind of like the idea of being able to carry around a few good programs on the U3 USB stick. Programs must be available in U3 format. The U3 version of Firefox, though, was able to install the normal plugins from the "addons" website, which is great! There is even a U3 version of Avast!, which you can configure to start up automatically when the U3 stick is initialized, to protect the stick from viruses. Pretty cool!

So I bought another one at BestBuy. They only sell U3 sticks now, but one of the GeekSquad staff used a tool right then and there to reformat the stick with FAT (16?). He started to say the tool could be downloaded from the website (U3 or SanDisk, I forget), then stopped himself because he couldn't truly remember if the tool was something only distributed to people like GeekSquad or available for public download.

If I ever need a blank stick again, I'll see if that tool is available for download. In the meantime, I just used the stick I bought and had reformatted at BestBuy, and when I re-installed my whole system to get rid of Windows, Slackware's Setup had no problem creating the boot disk (and explicitly gave me a success message; plus it also asks for confirmation first, which it didn't with the "protected" stick).