# don't know how to load module '/boot/kernel/kernel'



## macfreek (Sep 22, 2013)

Today I spent over half a day trying to figure out how to make a bootable USB stick with FreeBSD. As usual, I followed the steps in the FreeBSD handbook, and the USB stick booted fine, and showed the boot menu. However, after the boot menu, it gave the following error:


```
FreeBSD/x86 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1
(root@snap.freebsd.org, Wed Sep 18 02:34:07 UTC 2013)
Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf
don't know how to load module '/boot/kernel/kernel'
|
can't load 'kernel'
```

The cause only daunted on me after a `ls` in some directories crashed the machines: the USB key was faulty. A few checks later indeed confirmed that exactly one block was corrupt. Using a different USB stick solved the problem.

I'll post this here, just in case this is useful to someone else.


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