boot from usb flash memory

Good day all,

I am having a devil of a time getting my usb flash memory stick to boot my laptop. I am trying to boot up into dos to reload an image of my operating system. My C drive is corrupted but the image is on my D drive but the computer will not boot so I need an alternate boot device. I have tried the HP utility for making a flash drive bootable but I never seem to get it down successfully, might be just the way I read the instructions plus maybe I need a little more tutoring on boot sectors. If anyone has an idea I would be grateful.

Dell Precision M70
usb boot option selected
60 Gig HD
1 Gig Ram
Win XP Pro
LG USB flash memory 1 Gig
1 absolutely disturbed guy

Thanks in advance, enjoy your day

Dave