USB booting :: Is my usb stick cheap crap?

I've been trying to boot off my usb stick, no success.

DSL only very occationally boots with the usb stick pluged in (not off the stick, off a cd) and rarely correctly recognisies it and the data on it. When I try to install DSL on the stick from within windows, it wont boot off the stick...

its a 512mb Astone...

any suggestions (apart from buy a new stick...)

thanks in advance...

original here.