# FreeBSD 10.1 not booting successfully from flash drive



## Alathar (Jul 30, 2015)

I am trying to install FreeBSD 10.1 on an HP 8000 server from a flash drive.  I plugged the flash drive into the old server, and I get:

```
Jul 29 21:15:40 elwood root: Unknown USB device: vendor 0x0781 product 0x5575 bus uhub2
Jul 29 21:15:40 elwood kernel: ugen1.3: <SanDisk> at usbus1
Jul 29 21:15:40 elwood kernel: umass0: <SanDisk Cruzer Glide, class 0/0, rev 2.00/1.26, addr 3> on usbus1
Jul 29 21:15:40 elwood kernel: umass0:  SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x0000
Jul 29 21:15:41 elwood kernel: umass0:0:0:-1: Attached to scbus0
Jul 29 21:15:41 elwood kernel: da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0
Jul 29 21:15:41 elwood kernel: da0: <SanDisk Cruzer Glide 1.26> Removable Direct Access SCSI-5 device
Jul 29 21:15:41 elwood kernel: da0: 1.000MB/s transfers
Jul 29 21:15:41 elwood kernel: da0: 3819MB (7821312 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 486C)
```

I FTP'd the full flash image to my existing FreeBSD system and copied it to the flash drive with the suggested `dd` command:
`dd if=FreeBSD-10.1-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img of=/dev/da01 bs=10240 conv=sync`
After the dd, I get the message:

```
Jul 29 21:15:41 elwood kernel: GEOM: da0: geometry does not match label (64h,33s != 255h,63s).
Jul 29 21:15:41 elwood kernel: GEOM: da0: media size does not match label.
```

When I mount the device, though, the file system contents look reasonable.  So, I plug it into the new server, which has the USB device in the boot list, and which says "No partition table" without the USB device in it, and start it up.  I get the HP logo screen, then I get a blank screen with a flashing underscore cursor, and the access light of the flash drive keeps blinking - but that's all that happens!  I've waited for over an hour, and that's all I get is the flashing cursor and the blinking flash drive access light.  Should I start over with a DVD?


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## shepper (Jul 30, 2015)

I recall that I needed to have legacy USB devices enabled in the BIOS but if your BIOS specifically recognized a San Disk Cruzer then I would question the writing of the memstick image.  You could try to boot the Flash drive on other system to check - you do not have to follow through with the installation.


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## wblock@ (Jul 30, 2015)

Where did you find that version of the `dd` command suggested?  While it will work (with the typo fixed), it is old.  The version shown in the bsdinstall(8) chapter is better.


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## Alathar (Jul 30, 2015)

wblock@ said:


> Where did you find that version of the `dd` command suggested?  While it will work (with the typo fixed), it is old.  The version shown in the bsdinstall(8) chapter is better.



http://www.freebsd.org/releases/10.1R/announce.html

As one example of how to use the memstick image, assuming the USB drive appears as /dev/da0 on your machine something like this should work:

`# dd if=FreeBSD-10.1-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img \
of=/dev/da0 bs=10240 conv=sync`

-- I found no dd command in the manual page you referenced.


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## Alathar (Jul 30, 2015)

shepper said:


> I recall that I needed to have legacy USB devices enabled in the BIOS but if your BIOS specifically recognized a San Disk Cruzer then I would question the writing of the memstick image.  You could try to boot the Flash drive on other system to check - you do not have to follow through with the installation.


The system that recognized the Cruzer was the old system.  I'm not sure how successful the new system was in recognizing it, since it doesn't get anywhere.  The only other system I had available to reboot was a UEFI system, so that got nowhere with the flash drive.  So, I burned a DVD from the full DVD image, and that started to work, but then hung:

```
Attempting Boot From CD-ROM
CD Loader 1.2

Building the boot loader arguments
Looking up /BOOT/LOADER... Found
Relocating the loader and the BTX
Starting the BTX loader

BTX loader 1.00  BTX version is 1.02
Consoles: internval video/keyboard
BIOS CD is cd0
BIOS drive C: is disk0
BIOS 638kB/3627653kB available memory

FreeBSD/x86 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1
(root@releng1.nyi.freebsd.org, Rue Nov 11 20:57:26 UTC 2014)
|\
```

And that's all she wrote. I got the vertical bar, overwritten by the reverse virgule, and it hung.  The DVD light continued to flash for several seconds, but then that stopped, too.  Now it appears dead.  This is repeatable.


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## wblock@ (Jul 30, 2015)

Alathar said:


> I found no dd command in the manual page you referenced


Yes, that's because it is in the BSDInstall chapter, not the man page: https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bsdinstall-pre.html#bsdinstall-usb
`dd if=FreeBSD-10.0-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img of=/dev/da0 bs=64k`


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## Alathar (Jul 30, 2015)

wblock@ said:


> Yes, that's because it is in the BSDInstall chapter, not the man page: https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bsdinstall-pre.html#bsdinstall-usb
> `dd if=FreeBSD-10.0-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img of=/dev/da0 bs=64k`


OK.  Thanks.  I tried that, too.  Though the dd ran 30% faster, the end result was the same.


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## Alathar (Jul 30, 2015)

shepper said:


> I recall that I needed to have legacy USB devices enabled in the BIOS but if your BIOS specifically recognized a San Disk Cruzer then I would question the writing of the memstick image.  You could try to boot the Flash drive on other system to check - you do not have to follow through with the installation.


Remember, too, that I was able to mount the mem stick and see the file systems (on the old server) - so there had to be some degree of completeness and consistency.


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## Alathar (Jul 30, 2015)

Should I try a newer flash drive?  But why didn't the DVD boot work?  Any idea what I should try next?


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## shepper (Jul 31, 2015)

My BIOS had several usb options: Legacy USB, USB1.0 and USB2.0.  For me, Legacy USB needed to be enabled in order to boot from a USB drive.  Without it enabled, It would not find the drive at boot.  Without Legacy, you can still mount a USB drive, just not boot from one.


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## Alathar (Jul 31, 2015)

shepper said:


> My BIOS had several usb options: Legacy USB, USB1.0 and USB2.0.  For me, Legacy USB needed to be enabled in order to boot from a USB drive.  Without it enabled, It would not find the drive at boot.  Without Legacy, you can still mount a USB drive, just not boot from one.


Is that an HP BIOS? I can't find anything like that in my BIOS.  I have set it for full POST memory test and full POST messages.  When the USB device is plugged in and I enter the setup utility, it appears and is fully identified, but doesn't offer me any "USB Options."  It has the size and the name, and a firmware version which looks reasonable.  Still, maybe I just need to go out and buy a new, modern flash drive.  I did dig out my Dell Dimension E310, and FreeBSD successfully booted into the installation on that from this flash drive, but maybe it's just not compatible with the HP Compaq 8000?  Even though it identified it?  The strange thing is, I have set the BIOS to show full POST messages, and without the flash drive in, it shows me as it steps through each part of the boot sequence, but with the flash drive in, it doesn't tell me it's going to try to boot from it, like it does with the DVD or the hard drive (which currently has no active partition).

Speaking of the DVD, I also put that in the Dell E310, and it got to exactly the same point and froze, so I think there's something wrong with the DVD, even though I don't get any kind of error.  I guess I'll try burning another one and we'll see if THAT makes any difference - it cannot be a coincidence that it gets to the exact same spot on two different machines from different manufacturers and then locks up.


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## Alathar (Jul 31, 2015)

Thanks, all!  A little streak of bad luck, I guess.  I wrote a new DVD and it booted right up!  I wrote it from the same download image, so I guess something went wrong with the burn process the first time.  As for the flash drive , maybe we'll never know.  I don't need two ways to install FreeBSD on this system.  Still, if there's some experiment you would like me to perform that would potentially be to the benefit of others, just let me know and I'll give it a go.  I guess the moral of the story is to always have a few additional old computers laying around to compare and contrast results...


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## Lewis De Payne (Oct 12, 2015)

I just want to chime in to say I'm able to reproduce this, using a Shuttle DS-61 (using current BIOS) with a Core-i3, under FreeBSD 10.2-RELEASE.

Trying to do a UEFI boot of the uefi-memstick (via USB, of course) results in the same hang described in post #5, above.  I am only able to boot the non-uefi memstick image, which happens to satisfy my use-case.

Lew


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