I've reviewed the documentation both here:

1. http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/kernel/#adding_a_kernel_to_a_boot_floppy

And here:

2. http://www.netbsd.org/guide/en/chap-misc.html#chap-misc-creating-bootfloppies

1. just flat out doesn't seem to work:

# vnconfig -c vnd0 boot-big.fs
# mount /dev/vnd0a /mnt
mount_ffs: /dev/vnd0a on /mnt: incorrect super block

2. Doesn't really fit my needs either, because it's more than I want to do.

The i386 FAQ page doesn't have anything specific either.

All I want to do is boot the distribution I've installed on a USB disk
via an install floppy. Sysinst detected the USB disk just fine and
installed onto it. But now I can't boot it.

This is an older i386 machine that I've put a USB 2.0 card into and a
USB hard drive.

I'm not sure if the bootloader is smart enough to be able to do this,
I haven't read up on this yet. But what I would like to do is somethng
like have a boot floppy with a boot loader that can boot a gzipped
kernel that exists on that same floppy. That kernel then knows how to
boot from the USB disk because I've built it that way.

I was able to mount the install CD, but I can't really tell what it's
trying to do. I kind of don't want to hack it though, I'd rather know
how to build a boot floppy.

I can probably help write a doc about this if I knew how to pull it
off technically.

Thanks.

Andy