[syslinux] Trying to figure out why my Cruzer Micro 512"MB" won't boot.

[Nazo]

Office Depot ran a deal with a Cruzer Micro 512MB (actually, around
488MiB) for about $20 after a rebate I may not see for months.  I saw
the ad yesterday and stopped by pretty well first thing this afternoon
to snatch one up while they were still there since I've been having to
make do with two 256MB drives to hold all the data I neded since one
drive couldn't hold enough (though I must admit my rescue disc type
stuff takes up most of that space that made me need another flash
drive to hold it all.)  I really wanted to completely consolidate
everything into one flashdrive and just sell the old drives or
something.  Unfortunately, it just doesn't seem to want to boot.  I
used the trick highlighted in the readme file on the fake USB-ZIP
method because my bios is among those which can't boot a USB-HDD. 
This method has worked on my previous 256MB flashdrives and my bios,
so I had good reason to believe it should have worked on this one.  I
get no errors and windows and linux both work flawlessly with it, so
the only conclusions I can draw is that either the bios absolutely
does not recognize it as a valid boot device so skips it completely
(which might explain why it instantly goes straight to the harddrive
with no visible delay) or that the drive itself is not properly
working as a bootable drive.

Any idea if it's the drive or the bios?  Either way, is there anything
I can do at all, or am I stuck having to keep carrying two flashdrives
still?