I am new to FreeBSD but I have experience in Linux. I wonder how we can make a FreeBSD filesystem bootable from an filesystem that I have untarred or cp -a in a partition. In Linux, I can cp/untar/rsync all the files (with all the attributes and metadata) in a partition. Then I edit the bootloader configuration file (/boot/grub/menu.lst, /etc/lilo.conf, etc.) to put the right root= parameter to the kernel, I adjust /etc/fstab and then I reinstall the bootloader . After having doing that I can boot this new filesystem. I would like to know what's the equivalent of this in FreeBSD. What do I have to do to boot from a FreeBSD filesytem that contains all its files? I have been only able to find http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/boot.html. boot0 is not a problem, I suppose I have to recreate boot1 (the first sector of the filesystem). Given the fact that boot1 is 512 bytes, I suppose it hardcodes the physical position of boot2 in the disk. Do I have to adjust other things beside /etc/fstab?