a usb stick would be better

but you must be able to access the BIOS to be able to tell it to boot fromm USB , and some older computers will not be able to boot from USB

pendrivelinux.com is a good place to start reading.

and if you really must use a windows based OS UBCD4win can be done on a USB drive using bartPE and selinux - not too hard if you can follow instructions