Help making bootable CD

W

waveaura

Please don't blast me for asking such a simple question. Everywhere I go when I ask this question no one wants to give me an answer and just says "dumb***, or Idi**". I do have a decent amount of experience with the windows cmd,Java script, C++, HTML, and a few other things.

This is what I have downloaded: 6.4-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso

6.4-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso 6.4-RELEASE-i386-disc2.iso 6.4-RELEASE-i386-disc3.iso 6.4-RELEASE-i386-docs.iso

How do I make a bootable "CD" ( I do not want a floppy )? The instructions on the sites I have gone to aren't very clear. What exactly do I need to do?
 
Quick note: if nobody else beats me to it I'll get to you in a moment. But right now the Simpsons are on TV and I have my priorities...;)

Alphons
 
I'm assuming that you are on Windows...

You need to burn 6.4-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso to a CD which is bootable disk. You also need to burn all these ISO images to CD. You need to use program such as Nero Burn to create cds. All you have to do is insert a blank CD into burner, open your app and click on Burn ISO image option.

Do not use 6.4-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso as it is suitable for network and other type of installation.


Once done you can install FreeBSD. Also take a look at official handbook, read it before you start installation http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/
 
So I can burn it to the CD in the form in which I downloaded it? Winrar shows it as compress3d file. If so thanks in advance! ^_^
 
waveaura said:
So I can burn it to the CD in the form in which I downloaded it?
Click to expand...

With a decent burning program that should be the case, yes.

waveaura said:
Winrar shows it as compress3d file.
Click to expand...

On the FTP server I use, only the DVD image is compressed. The others are simply ISO images that are not compressed and therefore should not be touched by Winrar, Winzip or other such programs. Just open them with your CD burning program and go :)

Hope this helps,

Alphons

P.S. As Vivek said: you need to select "burn image", not "burn data CD". If you do the latter you'll simply end up with a non-bootable data CD that has one file on it (which would be the ISO image).
 
I can't get it to install. The only program I can pull up is wwbmu 6.4i and it is in german. What am I doing wrong. All the guide books have nothing on this. I really need some clear cut instructions. There is nothing on this site that I have found. I have also checked the link that is provided with the pre installation instructions.x(x(

Please help
 
First, backup all data. I'm dam sure you are going to loss it. You need to dual boot Windows and FreeBSD? Do you wann kick out Windows and use FreeBSD as desktop os?
 
I am using a new hardrive that had a copy of windows but I don't want it. So I don't need it to dual boot.
 
To be more clear the information on the hardrive doesn't matter. I want just freebsd on the hardrive.
 
Just for the sake of clarity: where are you now?

Have you been able to burn the install CD?
Have you been able to boot it?
Do you get to an installation program?
Can you get through the installation procedure?
Can you boot your newly installed system?

Alphons
 
I made the CD and it does boot. It boots to A:\. That is where I get stuck. I use path to find the programs on the Cd. The only one that will run is wwbmu and it is all in German. It is some type of partition program. That is pretty much where I am.
 
waveaura said:
I made the CD and it does boot. It boots to A:\. That is where I get stuck. I use path to find the programs on the Cd. The only one that will run is wwbmu and it is all in German. It is some type of partition program. That is pretty much where I am.
Click to expand...

Yeeeeaaaah, right.

Perhaps it's time for someone more knowledgeable than me to step in because this is sounding kinda weird.

You say it's booting to A. Does "A" mean your floppy drive or something? You shouldn't need to search for any programs on the CD, it's supposed to start the installation program all by itself. I've never heard of wwbmu and for some reason it's German? Last time I checked the FreeBSD installer spoke perfectly good English (and no, English is not my native language). My educated guess is that your computer's BIOS is booting from a floppy disk left in your floppy drive instead of the CD you want it to boot from (the fix to which is to change the boot order in your BIOS to make it try the CD drive first), otherwise I'm at a complete loss.

Anyone else have any suggestions?

Alphons
 
What the F*** is going wrong here???

waveaura said:
I don't even have a floppy disk drive.
[snip]
I am really frustrated.
Click to expand...

I can imagine. Unless we're overlooking something trivial (which maybe a fresh pair of eyes could point out, hint to other forum users) this is simply not supposed to happen. When you boot the FreeBSD install CD it's supposed to load the kernel and start an (English!) installation program called sysinstall(). As I said, I'm at a complete loss. Unless I'm missing something small but stupid this is really, really weird.

Alphons
 
waveaura said:
I also used nero to burn the ISO image just like previously suggested.
Click to expand...

Nero should work just fine, as long as you remembered to burn an image rather than a data CD. Just to be sure (no offense or patronizing intended, but clearly something is wrong here so we should probably check even the smallest thing), can you open the CD on the computer you burnt it with? What does it say is on that disc?

Alphons
 
I already double check3ck3d the cd in case the image was the problem. This si what the cd has on it - 6.4-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso
 
waveaura said:
I already double check3ck3d the cd in case the image was the problem. This si what the cd has on it - 6.4-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso
Click to expand...

No offense but that seems like you burned a data CD after all...

When you open the CD you should see an entire directory structure with several files and folders in it (some of which will be human readable, some of which won't). If that's not the case and you only see the one *.iso file on the disc then you simply burned the CD the wrong way.

You can't just drag the iso image onto Nero because (apparently) then it will do what it just did which is wrong. You explicitly need to select "burn image to cd". And when you open the disc after burning it, it should show several files and folders but NOT that *.iso file.

[edit]
To clarify things: you don't want the ISO file put on the CD, you want the contents of that ISO file put on a CD. Those are two completely different operations and your burning software should know the difference. I know Nero does.
[/edit]

Alphons
 
I did it twice with nero and double checked. It ends up the same way each time. I select burn image.

I think it might have something to do with it being stuck in winrar.
 
waveaura said:
I did it twice with nero and double checked. It ends up the same way each time. I select burn image.

I think it might have something to do with it being stuck in winrar.
Click to expand...

That could be a problem indeed. As I mentioned earlier, Winrar or Winzip or other such programs must not touch the ISO image (unless it's the DVD image, which truly is compressed and needs to be decompressed before it can be burned) in any way whatsoever. In fact, because an ISO image isn't compressed in the first place those programs should never even get into the picture anyway but maybe it's just some weird thing Windows does with file associations and that sort of helpfully-meant but potentially destructive crap. The ISO image needs to go straight from download to Nero and should not be tampered with by Winrar, Winzip or any other program.

Alphons
 
I don't think that is the problem. Becuase the CD wouldn't boot at all. I read on one of the manuals that the boot CD calls its self A:\>. Could have something to do with the partition on the hardrive itself? The hardrive is not partitioned. Would that cause this problem?
 
waveaura said:
Becuase the CD wouldn't boot at all.
Click to expand...

That's the first and foremost problem.

waveaura said:
I read on one of the manuals that the boot CD calls its self A:\>.
Click to expand...

If anything, the CD would call itself /dev/acd0 or something similar. A: \> (space added to prevent it being parsed as an emoticon) only exists in the DOS/Windows world. If you see such a prompt you simply have NOT booted FreeBSD (or Linux, for that matter).

waveaura said:
Could have something to do with the partition on the hardrive itself? The hardrive is not partitioned. Would that cause this problem?
Click to expand...

Ehm... Nope. The installer doesn't do anything with your harddrive until you really want it to. Whether the harddisk is partitioned or unpartitioned, at boot time that should not make any difference whatsoever.
 
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