# Install FreeBSD on a bare notebook without CD-ROM



## casey (Mar 1, 2010)

Hey friends, I want to install FreeBSD on a bare computer without CD-ROM saying it only can be installed from hard drive, who can help me with this? please describe in details. Thanks in advance!


----------



## casey (Mar 1, 2010)

sorry, forget to clear one thing, that is my computer is notebook, it is not equipped with floppy drive. So I guess I need make my USB key with system startup function.


----------



## fbsd1 (Mar 1, 2010)

A good place to look for answers to your question id the how-to section of the forum.

http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=11715

http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=11680

These are 2 good documents for you to read.


----------



## nhanquy (Mar 6, 2010)

casey said:
			
		

> sorry, forget to clear one thing, that is my computer is notebook, it is not equipped with floppy drive. So I guess I need make my USB key with system startup function.



1. Borrow a freeBSD machine.
2. Download the ISO image to somewhere with enough space (need maybe 5G extra)
3. Take that ISO and make an USB stick bootable by running the script, something like :

```
./iso2flash.sh -t bsd 8.0-RELEASE-i386-dvd1.iso /dev/da0
```
(note: I haven't tried to use the USB to install freeBSD yet - just built the USB stick only!)
4. Try to install freebsd on your laptop (and go back tell us about it)


----------



## vermaden (Mar 7, 2010)

casey said:
			
		

> sorry, forget to clear one thing, that is my computer is notebook, it is not equipped with floppy drive. So I guess I need make my USB key with system startup function.



Download the officiam *-memstick-* USB pendrive image, and boot from it, I use this image (instead of CD image) all the time without any problems: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/8.0/8.0-RELEASE-i386-memstick.img

To write it to your pendrive you will have to do something like that: `# dd < memstick.iso > /dev/drive bs=8M`


----------

