# Unable to install FreeBSD, BIOS freezes with USB



## Deleted member 67862 (Jan 2, 2022)

Hello all,

I'm trying to install FreeBSD on a Dell Vostro 200 desktop. It is a great machine that I used to daily drive Linux on and as a Windows XP sandbox. However, I'd like to return to using it but with FreeBSD.

The problem I have is that the BIOS startup freezes with the FreeBSD installation flash drive inserted. I also tried NetBSD which showed up in the BIOS boot selection menu with no freezes, but it said no installation media was found. I went back to try FreeBSD and this time I _made sure_ the flash drive was bootable. I found out it works just fine on my regular desktop (in legacy boot mode too) so I tried it in the Vostro again but with the same freezing issue. Perhaps its because this machine is from before UEFI, but I followed someones suggestion to use efibootmgr from my other desktop to remove any EFI entries on the flash drive but I'm unable to even access the flash drive after dd'ing FreeBSD onto it (from Linux). `efibootmgr /dev/sdb` just gives me the statistics of my current Linux installation on /dev/sda. Any ideas please?


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## covacat (Jan 2, 2022)

try this image (it's old but if this setup boots from USB then we might hack a 13x boot disk)


			http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/ISO-IMAGES/10.2/FreeBSD-10.2-RELEASE-amd64-mini-memstick.img


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## gpw928 (Jan 2, 2022)

It might be worth trying a USB2 port instead of USB3...


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## Deleted member 67862 (Jan 2, 2022)

gpw928 said:


> It might be worth trying a USB2 port instead of USB3...


All of the ports on this model are USB2.



covacat said:


> try this image (it's old but if this setup boots from USB then we might hack a 13x boot disk)
> 
> 
> http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/ISO-IMAGES/10.2/FreeBSD-10.2-RELEASE-amd64-mini-memstick.img


Yes, this works! Albeit when I enter the boot menu it says something about a disk drive failure, and shows that I have a floppy disk inserted along with the usb. I can boot into this version of FreeBSD.


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## covacat (Jan 2, 2022)

this image does not have a MBR/GPT partition scheme, its just like a floppy
a high capacity one though


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## Deleted member 67862 (Jan 2, 2022)

covacat said:


> this image does not have a MBR/GPT partition scheme, its just like a floppy
> a high capacity one though


Weird.. Without any scheme, how am I to install FreeBSD? (Also, how can I get a still-maintained version of FreeBSD that will work like this one did)?


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## covacat (Jan 2, 2022)

the partition scheme is absent only on the usb drive, doesn't mean you wont have one on the harddrive
you can either create a similar boot disk from a 13-RELEASE one or try a 'hacky' boot with 2 sticks
if you have 2 sticks put 13.0 on the 2nd and boot from 10.x
stop it at the loader prompt
see if you see both usb drives as bios disks
set currdev, loaddev to 13 (should be disk1)
load kernel from it and boot


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## Deleted member 67862 (Jan 2, 2022)

covacat said:


> you can either create a similar boot disk from a 13-RELEASE one or try a 'hacky' boot with 2 sticks
> if you have 2 sticks put 13.0 on the 2nd and boot from 10.x
> stop it at the loader prompt
> see if you see both usb drives as bios disks
> ...


The problem is 13.0 causes the BIOS to crash before I can enter the loader prompt. So I guess I will have to make a boot disk. I have no clue how to do this though..


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## covacat (Jan 2, 2022)

do you have any freebsd box or access to a freebsd vm ?


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## Deleted member 67862 (Jan 2, 2022)

covacat said:


> do you have any freebsd box or access to a freebsd vm ?


Not at the moment


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## covacat (Jan 2, 2022)

img.flp.xz
					






					drive.google.com
				



it's an image created from the FreeBSD-13.0-RELEASE-amd64-mini-memstick.img 
i just dd-ed the ufs partition and installed bootcode (dunno if bootcode dd is really a must, seems to be present in the original)
so if you don't trust my file you can create with your linux box
mount loop the image, dd the freebsd partition to the stick


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## Deleted member 67862 (Jan 3, 2022)

covacat said:


> img.flp.xz
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks. I was almost out of hope. I will certainly give this a try!


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## Deleted member 67862 (Jan 3, 2022)

Covacat, you are a lifesaver. This worked and I now have FreeBSD installed. I had spent ALL DAY trying to figure this out! I knew I didnt want to settle for anything less than FreeBSD. Maybe I should voice this problem to the devs.. there really needs to be an ISO that doesnt use UEFI / GPT for compatibility reasons.


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