# USB Stick install fails on HP Pavilion



## ebike (Jul 4, 2017)

Hi All,

I am having a lot of difficulty booting a USB Stick on this machine. I have tried Linux and even NetBSD installs, and they work just fine, but the FreeBSD image for a USB stick will not boot.

I wonder if it is because I think this machine might expect a 32bit UEFI boot.  Can anyone help here? I have tried all the USB images I can find in the Downloads page and none work. (even tried 32bit images) I have been using Linux "DD" to image the sticks.

Cheers,
B.


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## SirDice (Jul 4, 2017)

Which image did you try last? And how exactly did you dd(1) the image?


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## ebike (Jul 4, 2017)

I did:
`sudo dd if=FreeBSD-11.0-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img of=/dev/sdb bs=2M`

Actually I tried on another USB stick and this time it booted but it said NetBSD not FreeBSD and then booted to the command line, it did not run any installer ..
(and yes, it definitely was the above freshly downloaded image, I did it twice to be sure)

EDIT: Ahh, it was booting the hard drive and ignoring the USB stick even when I went into the bios and selected it to boot ..


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## SirDice (Jul 4, 2017)

ebike said:


> I did:
> `sudo dd if=FreeBSD-11.0-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img of=/dev/sdb bs=2M`


Ok, that's good. One of the most common mistakes is to write to a partition instead of the disk itself.


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## ebike (Jul 4, 2017)

Been doing Linux for 20 yrs, so don't make that mistake often. Still no clue as to why it doesn't boot ...


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## Phishfry (Jul 4, 2017)

You mention 32Bit UEFI well give us machine details so we can help. HP model and CPU.


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## ebike (Jul 4, 2017)

Will do, but will have to wait till I get home tonight ... thanks


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## Phishfry (Jul 4, 2017)

32Bit EFI is not supported so if this is a Z37xx laptop then you might need to boot via Grub for the 32bit UEFI


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## ebike (Jul 4, 2017)

It is a Desktop PC, but like I said will have to wait till I get home to give you the model details.
If it is 32Bit UEFI, where do I find info on how  to boot via Grub  ...


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## Phishfry (Jul 4, 2017)

https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2016-March/059934.html


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## ebike (Jul 5, 2017)

My HP Pavilion desktop info:
Name: P6-2175a
cpu: i3-2120
bios: cup_716.rom

That link you gave above wasn't that helpful. I got the .efi file and mounted a FreeBSD ISO on the loop device. I then had a look in the /boot directory to see if there
was an "efi" directory to place the file in, but there was not ... need some help here on building a new ISO with 32bit UEFI support ..

.. if indeed that is the issue ..


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## Phishfry (Jul 5, 2017)

With a Sandy Bridge CPU you should be fine. 64bit UEFI works there.
Maybe you have an issue with EFI video output? Do you get to loader screen or nothing at all?


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## ebike (Jul 5, 2017)

Nothing at all, does not see the USB stick as a bootable device.

.. yet, as I say other distros linux/bsd boot fine .. (on the same stick too )


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## Phishfry (Jul 5, 2017)

How about you try FreeBSD 10.3. With that version there are separate UEFI and Regular BIOS install files. Try the Non-UEFI version to see if that is your issue.

If so install 10.3 and run freebsd-update to bring it up to FreeBSD 11.


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## Phishfry (Jul 5, 2017)

You could also try FreeBSD 11 -but use the 32Bit images. They do not contain EFI either.

Have you looked at the BIOS and tried messing with the UEFI/CSM settings?


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## ebike (Jul 5, 2017)

Hi, yes I had tried the 32bit images, they did not boot either, I also played with all the bios settings I can think of, not many, as it is a very basic bios ..
I will try the 10.3 image tonight ... thanks for the suggestions.


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## Phishfry (Jul 5, 2017)

One more thing to look at is the USB memstick LED. See if the USB stick is blinking like its booting up, but with no video.
That might help to isolate the problem.
Any chance you have installed a video card and the motherboard has onboard video?


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## ebike (Jul 5, 2017)

Yes, the Stick does blink, like it is trying to boot ..

And Yes, I have installed a video card, but I had disabled the on-board video in the bios.
Does FreeBSD not like some video cards then? I will turn on the on-board video and try that instead ..


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## Phishfry (Jul 5, 2017)

Not so much that FreeBSD doesn't like video cards. It ignores the disabled 'video BIOS setting' and uses the video on-board.
The Video card will appear as vga1 and onboard video as vga0.
This is just an educated guess. My APU2 box doesn't have a vga connector but FreeBSD thinks it has video out.
I see similar things with multiple video output motherboards. Favor one video port over the other.

For an xorg desktop you can specify which monitor to use.


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## Barakah (Jul 6, 2017)

*Hello guys,*
I have same issue with (HP Compaq 6200 Pro Small Form Factor). USB stick is blinking like its booting up, but with no video appeared and monitor turn off. note that video card is built-in on board, below System specifications:

*Processor:* Intel Core i5-2400
*Chipset:* Intel Q65 Express
*Memory:* 8GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM
*Network interface:* 3x Intel Gigabit Ethernet
*Storage:* Samsung SSD 850 120GB
*Graphics:* Integrated Intel HD
I have tried ubuntu and windows10 with UEFI booting and working it's working fine. only issue with FreeBSD loader on above PC. Could anyone solve this issue? Thanks


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## ebike (Jul 7, 2017)

Phishfry said:


> Not so much that FreeBSD doesn't like video cards. It ignores the disabled 'video BIOS setting' and uses the video on-board.
> The Video card will appear as vga1 and onboard video as vga0.
> This is just an educated guess. My APU2 box doesn't have a vga connector but FreeBSD thinks it has video out.
> I see similar things with multiple video output motherboards. Favor one video port over the other.
> ...


Hi,

I tried on the motherboard video, but the same issue, it just won't boot the USB stick, flashes the stick LED a few times, then goes onto booting the hard drive ...
(this is after selecting to boot the stick in the bios)

There is something wrong with these images ..

PS: The 10.3 image does not boot either (non UEFI)


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## ebike (Jul 7, 2017)

Man, this is the most difficult install I have had in my life .... and I have installed hundreds of Linux boxes ..
Giving up on the USB stick, I plonked an ISO onto a CD and booted up a USB connected CD drive.

That at least booted, I hit ENTER for multiuser mode, it started booting, then reset, then booted again ... continues in an endless loop ..
What gives? It can't be this hard ......

I tried single-usermode, safe-mode and any other mode offered, all the same result.
Looks like I just can't install FreeBSD on this machine .... oh well, looks like NetBSD it is ...


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## Barakah (Jul 7, 2017)

Yesterday I purchased USB-TO-Serial cable to try FreeBSD image for serial installation and the surprise it has been installed without any issue. So the issue only VGA image which is disable VGA with first boot fro USB stick. Hope this will help you guys.


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## ebike (Jul 7, 2017)

Is there a HOWTO somewhere on installing via serial? 
Not sure what you mean't by your second sentence regarding VGA would you mind making that statement clearer .. thanks.


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## Phishfry (Jul 7, 2017)

The serial cable would be a last resort in my opinion. I use them on my headless machines.
Well if you had luck with the CD then I think you can get it going. Can you get to the loader screen with the Beastie logo?
If so you can pipe in some useful settings.
I would seriously consider using no added VGA card in the computer. Your cpu has Intel HD2000 video built in. Added video is just another complexity.

With that you would use Beastie menu and pick #3 and this drops you to a loader prompt where you feed in options. Like this:
`kern.vty=sc
boot`
This will change you to the system console, an older fallback console to the now default vt console.
https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=sc&sektion=4
https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=vt&sektion=4


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## ebike (Jul 8, 2017)

Ok, I can drop into the loader, but It does not allow me to type "kern.vty=sc" however boot and a heap of other commands are there
What am I meant to do in the shell that will allow me to boot without this cycling ..

I pulled the graphics card out and tried to boot of the on-board card and all I get is black screen .. the CD disk is accessed but nothing on screen ..

So in essence:
On external Card: Boots to beastie, but cycles
On internal card: Black screen


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## Phishfry (Jul 8, 2017)

You might need to add 'set' to your command.

`set kern.vty=sc
boot`

Some other video settings to try before switching to sc:

`set gop 0
boot`

`set mode 0
boot`

`set mode 3
boot`


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## Barakah (Jul 8, 2017)

Video Graphics Array (VGA) is connector but We mean metaphorically its video card built-in on motherboard which display output to PC monitor.
You can download FreeBSD memstick and mount it on other *nix system and modify loader to redirect output to serial console port.

This Advanced Installation Guide will help you.


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## ebike (Jul 9, 2017)

Phishfry  None of those video options helped, the boot still resets & loops ... and that is only on external video card. The motherboard video card still shows blackscreen  ..
Barakah  I will try the serial install with the modified CD ISO, but I suspect it might still have the same issue and do a reset cycle ... so not confident it will help.


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## Phishfry (Jul 9, 2017)

What are the connectors involved here. Does your motherboard have more than 1 video jack. Perhaps like VGA and HDMI.?
Also what is the video card using? VGA only?
What does your display use as its normal operating size on other OS? For instance 1366x768...

If you plan on trying headless I think the bottom of this page has the loader settings I use.
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/serialconsole-setup.html
(I have only used serial-serial console cable with this.)

Most computers don't have serial console redirect in the BIOS. Mostly servers and embedded use.
This method should still work without serial redirection but you won't see the bios screens over serial..
I modified my FreeBSD installer memstick to add my serial settings to
/boot/loader.conf

```
boot_multicons="YES"
boot_serial="YES"
comconsole_speed="115200"
console="comconsole,vidconsole"
```

This 'serial console on a regular box' is really a hard way to get this working. Are you sure you have scoured the BIOS?
Just tonight I converted Win8 Toshiba laptop to FreeBSD. I had to go thru the bios many many time to find the trick.
In this box it was "Secure Boot" that needed to be disabled that then allowed me to change from UEFI to CSM in the BIOS.
This was the key to installing on a Toshiba C55D with AMD A8. So sometimes the settings are hidden until you disable something else.


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## ebike (Jul 10, 2017)

My motherboard has VGA and HDMI, I had removed the external video card and was connecting to the HDMI, maybe I will get an old VGA monitor I have lying around and try that.
I can't tell you about the resolutions, as I am at work.

Yes, i have scoured the BIOS, there is very little settings to do with booting on these machines, I did look for "Secure Boot" awhile ago, and it is not there.
I just can't work out why I can boot any other os like Ubuntu, ArchLinux,  and even NetBSD, with a USB stick and graphics card even, yet it can't boot FreeBSD.

I will try a simple VGA monitor and boot from CDROM,  before I go down the serial boot path.


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## ebike (Jul 10, 2017)

Ok, I have tried the VGA connector as well. I can get to the Beastie menu when I boot The CDROM drive connected to to USB via an adapter, NOT the sata bus!
However I get the same issue, I select either multiuser boot or single, it starts loading some stuff, then reboots and cycles again ..

It look like the graphics adapter has nothing to do with this issue ..

Maybe it is an HP secure boot thing that is causing the reset, but I see absolutely nothing in the bios to turn it off ..

Update: I made some changes to the bios and now it just gets stuck in the boot: see attached link.
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




EDIT: I hate it when forums don't allow embedded pictures, anyone know a good site?


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## ebike (Jul 10, 2017)

Just an idea .. since I have NetBSD installed on my hard-drive and booting, is there a way I can install FreeBSD on top of it, that might be a way around this issue and get me up and running.
(e.g. like installing the root file system over top of NetBSD's, .. apart from /boot that is  )


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## ebike (Jul 11, 2017)

Anyone? I am about to give up on booting FreeBSD


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## ebike (Jul 13, 2017)

I can't even do a serial install, as this machine does not have one .... does the bootloader support usb->serial on that side as well?
(then I could do two usb-> serial adapters wired null-modem)


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## ebike (Jul 14, 2017)

I seem to be having a nice conversation with my self ...

I have had some success, I managed to install a 10.3 USB image (non uefi) and as long as I selected UFS filesystem and MBR booting,  the hard-drive now boots.
(I tried doing the root-ZFS thing, but although it installed ok, the hard drive would not boot.)

So now I am in, I am trying to upgrade to 11.* with freebsd-update, but when I run it, it says "failed.. no mirrors remaining, giving up"
Can someone help me with this one?, I am getting bored with my own conversation.


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## Phishfry (Jul 14, 2017)

ebike said:


> it says "failed.. no mirrors remaining, giving up"


Sounds like an internet connection problem.
Can you ping out to anywhere?


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## ebike (Jul 14, 2017)

Internet is fine. The problem likely is that I don't know the correct upgrade command:
When I tried 
	
	



```
freebsd-upgrade -r 11 upgrade
```
 is when it failed... 

I can't seem to find the correct process anywhere ..

When I did 
	
	



```
freebsd-upgrade fetch update
```
 that worked, but just updated 10.3 ..


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## Phishfry (Jul 14, 2017)

freebsd-update upgrade -r 11.0


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## ebike (Jul 14, 2017)

Brilliant! .. downloading thousands of patches while we talk.

By the way, any idea why the root-over-ZFS did not boot? I would have preferred a ZFS file-system instead of UFS ..


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