Mac mini lion restore from USB drive - getting no-entry sign

I'm trying to recover my dead mac mini, and I'm having lots of problems. The disc is dead - I've booted in target mode and been able to reformat it from another machine, soit's working to that extent.
There's obviously no recovery system running now, and I need to get Lion running because Mountain Lion isn't supported.
I've created a few flash drives to boot from - downloading the lion install package, opening it, taking out the .dmg file and using disk utility to copy it - all as recommended by other advice.
Each time what happens is that the boot starts, then it hangs with a no-entry sign.
Any suggestions?

Which version of OS X came with your mini?

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It does not show up in disk utility, its only visible through systeminformation.
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To remove it I shut down the computer because I cannot eject the USB device anywhere.
After starting up again when I have removed the flash drive it has gone from the systeminfo USB list.
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Thanks Gary. Given your confirmation that it should be possible, I've taken the fact that the external drive doesn't appear as a choice in "startup disk" as an indication that my disk is the issue. I did try two alternatives method to get the .iso to disk given your hint,
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Hi Users,
I am exhausted. Graduate school is starting again. I have been to way too many forums and I am about to throw this piece of junk called a MacBook Pro in the trash and call it a lost. I will tell you why I am so frustrated:
1. Wanted to reload Mac OSX + bootcamp to install W7. Did a bunch of things on another forum that just made things worse.
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