Now that sounds interesting. It might translate into breaking the boot sector down into individual bits- some may be boolean flags... f8 would be 1111 1000 in binary, and if I recall correctly (if you're looking at the right thing), the removable media bit needs to be set from 1 to 0 (I'd have to review the posting for the exact position and value). Say for example it was bit 2 of the f8 code... if f8 is 1111 1000, and we needed to change bit 2 (assuming we're talking from R to L), that would change it to 1111 1010, or fa, so fa would become the new boot sector media descriptor...

Now how exactly ARE you managing to see and edit the boot sector of the USB stick??? That is a part of the puzzle I haven't come across yet...