I understand what the pen drive is for but I don't see how it would work
or could work in this situation.

It wasn't anything to do with the OS that was a problem. It was with the
BIOS - which initializes system hardware pieces. The change to the
graphics setting in the BIOS means that neither the on board nor added
on video card was was being initialized. There was no video out put so,
using a pen drive wouldn't have helped.