There is another way to turn the 1802 message off without having to create a linux live boot disk. Do a google search for no-1802 and you should find a very small (~20 bytes) dos .exe file that you can load on a bootable floppy or usb flash drive. Just boot up, run the exe and the 1802 message shoul...

Tiger FWIW Try to get the vendor to ship via USPS if at all possible. Shipping via UPS will cost big time in brokerage fees. (not sure about fedex) I have read reports where some people have paid more for brokerage than the item was worth.

Yes you can format the flash drive with the windows format utility but that doesn't make it bootable. If you put "bootable flash drive" into google it will pop up a number of links including one to the HP utility I used.

It is definitely possible to boot from a flash drive because I have done it with my T40. I formatted the flash with fat32 and copied the necessary system files from a win98 floppy.
I booted the flash as a USB/FLOPPY and it worked fine.
You will need an HP utility (google) to format the flash.

How much extra for shipping to the west coast of Canada?

I'm interested. How much to ship to the west coast of Canada?