Anyone stumbling over this i the future - the idiot proof method of getting USB formatted is get a 1 or 2GB cheap USB, put in it a switch with a functional USB port and format usbflash0: or usbflash1: 

I realize this is an ancient thread.   The original post was for a 2960.  This solution is for a 2960X.   The 2960X (and the 2960-S)supports TFTP in ROMMON.  The 2960- 2960+ and 2960G do not.

Cisco won’t release / bless it but you can dl it from LSI and install it yourself

because its Cisco and anything that should take 3 minutes takes hours.

Yeah. never got that to work tried many many times.  My UCS is under TAC support so Cisco kindly provided the 3.0.4J for me.  I've opened another to get the 3.0.4M since same issue.  I'm not taking remote servers down to pull PSUs for 10 minutes and ...