UFS Copy usb image to hdd and boot from it

I

i.am.the.problem

Hi,
I'm having lots of issues when trying to boot my nanobad created installer on a dell server using the iDracs virtual media.

I tried booting into an minimal FreeBSD image, mounting a directory on another server which contained my installer, and using dd to copy that installer onto one of the hdd's in the server. But the server doesn't see it as bootable.

The following is the output of fdisk, run on linux, for the nanobsd installer.

Code: 
Disk installer.img: 11.18 GiB, 12000000000 bytes, 23437500 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x90909090

Device            Boot    Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
nsginstaller.img1 *          63 23406704 23406642 11.2G a5 FreeBSD
nsginstaller.img3      23406705 23422769    16065  7.8M a5 FreeBSD

Can this be done?
 
I did this a few months ago, and it worked great. Just download FreeBSD-13.3-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img (you might want to grab a newer version), the "dd if=FreeBSD-... of=/dev/daN bs=1m" (no partitioning required), connect it to the server. The only thing I had to do is go into the BIOS and tell the server to boot from that disk (it usually only boots from the disks I want it to).

But the server doesn't see it as bootable.
Click to expand...
What part of the server? What is the error message? Traditional BIOS or UEFI (I only have experience with the former)?

I have no idea what that output from Linux fdisk means.
 
You need to tell us which FreeBSD "image" you used, and what you did with it.

Here I used FreeBSD-13.3-RELEASE-amd64-mini-memstick.img, and the dd command to write that file to a USB stick (on Linux) was:
Code: 
sudo dd if=FreeBSD-13.3-RELEASE-amd64-mini-memstick.img of=/dev/sda conv=sync,fsync status=progress
I can then see what's on the USB stick (on Linux) with:
Code: 
[farlap.806] $ sudo fdisk /dev/sda

Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.38.1).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.

Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 14.46 GiB, 15525216256 bytes, 30322688 sectors
Disk model: TOSHIBA USB DRV
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x90909090

Device     Boot Start    End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sda1           1  66584   66584 32.5M ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
/dev/sda2  *    66585 961576  894992  437M a5 FreeBSD
I know you have an iDRAC in the way. Have you considered putting the OS onto the SD card (which, perhaps, could be written most conveniently on another running system)?
 
Thanks for the replies. I used the following to copy the img to the HDD.
Code: 
sudo dd if=installer.img of=/dev/da2 bs=4M status=progress && sync
As it turns out it was bootable but I'd left the virtual media connected in the iDrac so it ended up booting that again as I can't see how you specify a HDD to boot from in the boot menu. It only allows you to select the first HDD. So the server was starting up. Trying the first HDD which had nothing on it. Then booting from the virtual media. Once I'd disconnected the Virtual Media it ended up booting from /dev/da2.
 
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