Booting from a USB stick is a common step in many recovery guides. This knowledgebase article covers the basics of troubleshooting the most common problems booting from a USB stick, a USB drive, or…

Broadly speaking, if you have a "USB" cable that only connects pins 1 & 4 then you will get power and no data (Best Buy was selling cables like that as Universal USB Charging Cables a while back, not sure if they still do). Likewise, if you have a cable with only 2 & 3, you will get data but no power. If you're curious, here's a Wikipedia page with the standard USB Pinout.