Booting Install .iso from Hard Disk?

Angus77 · #1 December 4th, 2008, 09:49

Hi! I'm wanting to try out FreeBSD, but the computer I have available to try it out on has no network connection and an unreliable CD-ROM (it just gives up here and there). It's an old clunker and I have no intention of actually buying any new hardware for it, no matter how cheap (I'd rather buy me a nice lunch!) Oh, and the BIOS doesn't allow me to USB boot.

I was able to install Ubuntu Hardy, and then Intrepid, to the thing following these instructions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...tion/FromLinux

which allows me to put the contents of the installation medium on my hard drive and boot & install from there.

I'd love to be able to do the same thing with FreeBSD, but I've spent the day screwing around and can't figure it out (total lack of experience with BSD would be a major contributing factor, I assume). It was easy enough with Linux, so I assume it can be done with FreeBSD...right?

bsddaemon · #2 December 4th, 2008, 10:00

Please take a look at GAG. I havent had a chance to test it by myself, but as I know, it is capable to do what you are after

You can always take the HDD out (adapter needed if it is laptop HDD), install FreeBSD from other machines then plug back in (make sure fstab entries are correct)

Angus77 · #3 December 4th, 2008, 12:59

Thanks. I'll give them a try (although I'm gonna be away from that computer for a couple days).

Although I still get the feeling there _must_ be some way to boot the install disk off the hard disk...

Business_Woman · #4 December 4th, 2008, 14:34

Have you looked at mdconfig ?

Angus77 · #5 December 5th, 2008, 14:51

I've googled it, but I don't understand how this will help...?

Business_Woman · #6 December 5th, 2008, 15:53

Sorry, my bad. I read your post rather hasty. No, you can't boot from an ISO as far as i know

richardpl · #7 December 5th, 2008, 15:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Angus77

I'd love to be able to do the same thing with FreeBSD, but I've spent the day screwing around and can't figure it out (total lack of experience with BSD would be a major contributing factor, I assume). It was easy enough with Linux, so I assume it can be done with FreeBSD...right?

Same rules from that howto apply to FreeBSD just instead of ext3 partition you need to format ufs partition, and copy files from CD.

But it is much better/faster to move hard disk to another machine with working CD-ROM and install FreeBSD on that hard disk and then put it back to that old clunker.

mdconfig(8) is useful only if you will do something like that from FreeBSD.
In that case you will not need to burn CD at all.

richardpl · #8 December 5th, 2008, 15:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Business_Woman

Sorry, my bad. I read your post rather hasty. No, you can't boot from an ISO as far as i know

I can boot from the iso using qemu.

Angus77 · #9 December 6th, 2008, 03:36

@richardpl

Well, the other two machines I have don't take IDE drives, which is what my clunker has. Yes, I enjoy banging my head against walls

Formatting the partition to UFS should have been obvious! I put the contents of the .iso on a vfat partition...

I'm going to try installing ufsutils and see if I can get it to work. It may take me e few days before I get the opportunity, but I'll report back on my success or lack thereof after I've tried it.

Djn · #10 December 6th, 2008, 06:51

Going on the qemu idea above:
Split out a disk partition, somehow.
Boot the ISO in qemu, with the new partition as hda.
Inside qemu, do a minimal install to disk, which should give you a bootable FreeBSD install in that partition.

If you can then get that booted somehow (asking grub to chainload it should work), you can then do the rest from there.

Does anyone see any obvious holes in this?

Angus77 · #11 December 6th, 2008, 14:26

I installed ufsutils from the Debian repositories, but I can't figure out how to use mkfs.ufs on Linux. Would anyone happen to know? I'm trying to format what Linux calls my sdb3 partition.

Angus77 · #12 December 10th, 2008, 15:22

Well, never mind. I've been playing around with FreeBSD in qemu.

I use a Japanese keyboard, and I've run into a problem---some of the keys don't work---most frustratingly the backslash/underscore key doesn't work. Mysteriously, the key makes the cursor jump to the beginning of a line. The delete key is also unresponsive.

I've been pretty persistent with many of the problems I've had with Linux, but this is getting to be more of a hassle than I bargained for. I never would have thought I'd have to spend time remapping the keyboard myself.

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
How can I make the entire disk partition completely empty in a very short time?	T010	Installing & Upgrading	22	June 5th, 2009 17:52
Best use for a second hard disk / disk imaging	geokes	System Hardware	6	December 2nd, 2008 01:08
Booting problem with FreeBSD 7	zeta_immersion	Installing & Upgrading	3	December 1st, 2008 19:57
Problem booting 7 Stable	francach	Installing & Upgrading	3	November 25th, 2008 19:45
BTX fault booting FreeBSD 6.3 amd64 on VMware Server 2	Christopher	Installing & Upgrading	4	November 21st, 2008 05:04

The Following User Says Thank You to bsddaemon For This Useful Post:
Angus77 (December 4th, 2008)