c0d2 Installing on a USB Flash drive? - The FreeBSD Forums
The FreeBSD Forums  

Go Back   The FreeBSD Forums > Base System > Installing & Upgrading
Reload this Page Installing on a USB Flash drive?
Register FAQ Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Installing & Upgrading Installing and upgrading FreeBSD.

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old June 16th, 2009, 02:43
diskman diskman is offline
Junior Member
  
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Sunny South Dakota
Posts: 4
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Default Installing on a USB Flash drive?
Am thinking of installing FreeBSD 7.2 on a spare 4GB flash drive I have rolling around here to make a diskless BSD box. However, the BIOS on the PC does not support boot to USB. Is there a way I could load the kernel from a floppy/CD then finish booting to USB? Has this ever been done with FBSD?

Any ideas? Input?
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old June 16th, 2009, 08:18
SirDice's Avatar
SirDice SirDice is offline
Moderator
  
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands
Posts: 13,694
Thanks: 47
Thanked 2,021 Times in 1,860 Posts
Default
Yes, you should be able to boot from a floppy and load the rest off a usb stick. I've done a similar thing in the past where the BIOS refused to boot of a relatively big harddisk (big for the BIOS standard of that time).
__________________
Senior UNIX Engineer at Unix Support Nederland
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old June 16th, 2009, 19:11
Oko's Avatar
Oko Oko is offline
Member
  
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Kosovo, Srbija
Posts: 326
Thanks: 27
Thanked 66 Times in 49 Posts
Default
That is a very interesting question. Even on OpenBSD which can be boot from the single floppy unlike FreeBSD it would be tricky. There are three different boot floppies for OpenBSD depending what kind of lets say i386 you want to boot. (there is a regular PC floppy, laptop floppy, and RAID floppy).

I would actually try something else. I am not sure if that can be done on FreeBSD though. OpenBSD provides something called cdbr which is the code for the first part of the boot process. It is only 2Kb. I would try to load that onto the floppy. cdbr will try to load bsd.rd (ram disk kernel) which contains about 5Mb of drivers necessary for honest boot. If you can actually specify that bsd.rd is on USB stick you will be in business.

As I said I am not sure if that can be done on FreeBSD but I am really curious to hear about your experience.
__________________
Wanting to learn is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged.
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old January 4th, 2010, 17:13
jenaniston jenaniston is offline
Junior Member
  
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Malibu, California
Posts: 54
Thanks: 2
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Default
Quote:
Originally Posted by diskman View Post
However, the BIOS on the PC does not support boot to USB. Is there a way I could load the kernel from a floppy/CD then finish booting to USB? Has this ever been done with FBSD?

Any ideas? Input?
try ploplinux on a CD iso -
it will then let you boot from USB even without bios support
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old January 4th, 2010, 17:18
jenaniston jenaniston is offline
Junior Member
  
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Malibu, California
Posts: 54
Thanks: 2
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Default




http://www.plop.at/en/ploplinux.html
Reply With Quote
Reply

« Previous Thread | Next Thread »
Thread Tools
Display Modes
Linear Mode Linear Mode

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
[Solved] auto mount usb flash drive and display to nautilus jemate18 General 11 June 18th, 2010 12:23
Installing from USB flash drive. Barnon Installing & Upgrading 7 August 19th, 2009 16:09
Can't mount usb flash drive pigritia Multimedia 17 July 28th, 2009 00:18
Umount ejected USB Flash drive (kernel panic) soko1 FreeBSD Development 13 March 23rd, 2009 20:38
usb flash drive and gam_server - can't umount arachnid Multimedia 2 November 16th, 2008 21:55


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 04:43.

Contact Us - FreeBSD - Archive - Top

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2013, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
The mark FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation and is used by The FreeBSD Project with the permission of The FreeBSD Foundation.
Web protection and acceleration provided by CloudFlare
0