# FreeBSD 11.1 Install on Intel D945GCLF2



## 3guesses (Mar 8, 2018)

I am new to FreeBSD and have been trying to run the installer on an Intel D945GCLF2 based system.  I generally use (the most excellent) WinSetUpFromUSB to perform OS installations, run diagnostic tools, disk utilities etc from a USB stick and I've not had a problem using it to install different versions of Windows and different Linux distros on various hardware, but the FreeBSD 11.1 installer (FreeBSD-11.1-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1.iso) fails during the boot process with:

Mounting from cd9660:/dev/iso9660/11_1_RELEASE_AMD64_DVD failed

So at a guess the installer uses a proprietary DVD-ROM driver which doesn't like WinSetUpFromUSB emulating the ISO file as optical media.  Which is a great shame!  So I decided to try the USB image method.  I have created a USB memory stick using Win32DiskImager.exe and FreeBSD-11.1-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img.  However, the PC then doesn't boot from the USB stick (it ignores it at boot time).  Looking at the contents under Windows, the USB stick seems to have been created with a GPT-style partition.  Again, I'm guessing that my motherboard doesn't support booting GPT?  Which leaves me a bit stuck...

Any help would be gratefully received as I would really like to give FreeBSD a go.

Thanks very much.


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## obsigna (Mar 8, 2018)

Way too much guesses.

I am responding because I have FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE running on a Intel D945GCLF2 without any single hick-up.

I installed FreeBSD using the most recent memstick image, which was 10.3 at that time, and later I updated the installation to FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE using the freebsd-update tool.

You want to download the recent 11.1 memstick image and then dd(1) it to your USB memstick, as described here. This one should boot fine, in case not, please report back.


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## MarcoB (Mar 8, 2018)

Why not burning the FreeBSD ISO to cd/dvd or image to flash drive directly, without the Win installer?


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## 3guesses (Mar 9, 2018)

MarcoB said:


> Why not burning the FreeBSD ISO to cd/dvd or image to flash drive directly, without the Win installer?



Burning to CD/DVD is not an option..  As I said, I did then burn the .img file directly to a USB stick but the PC ignores it when booting - I'm guessing because it uses a GPT partition style.


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 15, 2018)

Did you follow the instructions from the Handbook?


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## 3guesses (Mar 26, 2018)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Did you follow the instructions from the Handbook?



Yes, as I have already said I burnt the .IMG file to a USB stick using Win32DiskImager.exe  as advised in the Handbook.  I have been able to boot from that on my old MSI laptop, but not my Intel D945GCLF-based PC which just seems to ignore the USB stick whereas it happily boots from other USB sticks so the problem is with the .IMG file for FreeBSD.


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## Phishfry (Mar 26, 2018)

Maybe you could try FreeBSD 10.4
They have separate versions for memstick and UEFI memstick installers.
Maybe on the older haldware you should try that. FreeBSD 10.4 memstick.


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## 3guesses (Mar 28, 2018)

Phishfry said:


> Maybe you could try FreeBSD 10.4
> They have separate versions for memstick and UEFI memstick installers.
> Maybe on the older haldware you should try that. FreeBSD 10.4 memstick.



Thanks, I will try that if they don't produce an MBR version of the USB installation image for v11.1.


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