# Bootable ISO-Images Disc1



## jaymax (Jul 25, 2009)

I've downloaded O/S Releases from 6.4 and 7.2 from
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/

MD5 Checks correct. Discs 1 ISO burned as bootable discs in Nero 9, w/ ISO9660 format and verified correct, but would not boot. My original 6.0 boots fine. [machine set to boot from CD-ROM]

Is there some nuance I am missing here, like format or some such issue

Thanks!

BTW is there a way to tell if a CD is actually bootable?


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## vivek (Jul 25, 2009)

There is no way to tell if it is bootable or not (honestly I dunno), but some time cds are bad. Can you try another cd?


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## dennylin93 (Jul 25, 2009)

If the unbootable disc is 7.2-RELEASE, check out the errata.


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## mk (Jul 25, 2009)

cd's are bootable, they are images so they have to be burn as images. find option burn image... in nero.


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## jaymax (Jul 26, 2009)

mk said:
			
		

> cd's are bootable, they are images so they have to be burn as images. find option burn image... in nero.



Nero 7 Ultra Edition

=> Nero StartSmart
In Nero Burning ROM or should it be Nero Express, both apparently burn images.

Burning ROM explicitly provides an option for bootable Discs, is this the one to use? You can add an iso image to this. The options given are:
CD-ROM(ISO)
CD-ROM(Boot)
CD-ROM(UDF)
CD-ROM(UDF/ISO)​In Nero Express there is 
Image/Project/Copy)​Default Format(All supported images and compilations)​
Supposedly Express provides a simple one stop process. Does not generally produce a bootable disc, I've had that experience before, probably I may have done somethiing wrong! Might have been with a different iso also.

Now with Burning ROM the two apparently viable options are 
CD-ROM(Boot) and CD-ROM(UDF/ISO) and both will burn an iso, although not correctly if a boot disc is required.

The question I need to ask is "does the iso file contain both the data, and whatever other information that tells the recorder that this is a bootable disc being burned?" or do I have to tell the recorder explicitly that "this disc must be bootable?"


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## Beastie (Jul 26, 2009)

Yes, disc1 is a bootable image. It contains everything needed to boot and install FreeBSD.

In the normal version (i.e. not StartSmart) of Nero, you just burn it from "Recorder > Burn Image..."
As simple as that.


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## jaymax (Jul 27, 2009)

I now have a stack of about 10 worthless discs 1, will probably use them as coasters for my wine glasses.

dennylin93 >> Post above is most likely the issue and probably applies to other versions also. 

"If the unbootable disc is 7.2-RELEASE, check out the errata." 

I remember having to purchase vers 6.0 from an external source for the same reason. Vers. 7.0 is OK but not 7.2


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## Beastie (Jul 27, 2009)

You should've stopped at the first attempt and tried the ERRATA recommendation (i.e. booting from livefs and switching to disc1 when sysinstall starts).
That's what I did when it failed to load on one of my computers, and it worked like a charm. Never had any trouble again.


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## jaymax (Jul 28, 2009)

Yes, Hindsight is always 20/20 . I did not even know of an errata page, which only appeared, apparently for the 7.2 Release => "If the unbootable disc is 7.2-RELEASE, check out the errata". At the time I was working on a 6.0 => 6.4 Upgrade with the intentions of a 6.4 => 7.0 => 7.4 stepwise transitions.
I extrapolated this back to previous versions as I had experienced this in earlier versions and saw/heard of others with similar complaints.

Now, my question is to find a way of restoring the partitions. I have three disks, one system disk and two option disks, I have a dump of the various slices of the system disk stored on one of the option disks, [/, /tmp, /var & /usr]. I have the general geometry of the disks but not the specifics of byte to byte offsets, so the geometry of sectors, cylinders etc. would not be precise. Creating, these geometries on ad0s1a [system disk] is potentially hazardous (I do not know for sure) should I attempt to restore the dump into an altered geometry. 

My thinking or hope is that the details of the geometry is still in the MBR on the disk and can be used to repair the partitions. If I escape to the loader before the booting step(and this is without livefs) I can see the MBR, directories and file listing under /. This includes the drives listed as their raw device names; ad0; ad1; ad4; acd0; & acd1.

The boot mesg on screen, after this listing states:
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ad0s1a
(which is correct)
but drops down to the mountroot prompt.

A listing of the GEOM maintained by the system under mountroot does not list the relevant partitions/slices.

How can i correct this?

Thanks!


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