I've tried a couple of installation methods, Lifehacker's and sk1nhd33t's. I've restored a retail dmg to a Sandisk 8gb thumb drive, partitioned in GUID. I am trying to install on a 60gb IDE HDD in an external USB case. I have a 500 gb SATA drive for data, but not installed yet. I only get a blinking cursor at boot-up.
pertinent (I believe) BIOS settings
1st boot device: USB Sandisk
SATA: AHCI
HPET: Enabled
AM I missing a USB BOOT enabled? Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.

*SOLVED*
I had a bad USB Thumb drive.

Now I can make it through setup, but am unable to log in. It doesn't recognize Username, Password. I re-setup with no password, but still no luck. It is an external drive, so I can go to a SL machine if anyone knows how to get past log in.

Thanks

MSI X58M
i7 920
4gb DDR3
BFG GTS250