# FreeBSD on external drive



## DozyVan (Mar 4, 2012)

I think this the the right place to post this. If I'm wrong please let me know. 

At first I t*ho*ught I was doing something wrong but now I am unsure. Here's the story:


*Step 1:* At first I downloaded FreeBSD and installed it onto VMware then tried to install onto external drive and when booting into the drive I kept getting the mountroot> prompt even tho the same ISO worked fine in VMware and this hard drive has had many OS's installed onto it over the last little while so it's not a hardware issue.


*Step 2:* After that I re-downloaded FreeBSD, burned it onto a disk. It appeared to install onto the external drive just fine but would not connect to the internet at all. When using the disk to install FreeBSD on the PC I realized that it never asked me to configure IPv4/6 on the hard drive but would ask on the PC.


*Step 3:* I went to PC-BSD and downloaded an ISO there. (I know I took the wussy way out) It installed perfectly on my PC and booted into a GUI interface. When installing onto my external drive, the installer works fine but once the installer is done it won*'*t boot into a GUI, it gets many errors in the... I don't know what the official name for it is but the scrolling text you get before the OS officially starts. It then stops at the end of it and never goes any further.

Am I using the wrong ISO or are people getting the same issues as me? If it*'*s an issue with FreeBSD 9.0 and you happen to know a version of FreeBSD that works with external hard drives please let me know.


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## wblock@ (Mar 4, 2012)

Probably not an ISO problem, although you never said which you were using.  After installing, go to a shell and edit /boot/loader.conf, adding these lines:

```
kern.cam.boot_delay=10000
kern.cam.scsi_delay=10000
```


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## phobozad (Mar 6, 2012)

That fix no longer seems to resolve the issue of USB devices not showing up in mountroot (in FreeBSD 9.0).

Previously they would just take too long to appear, and you could manually tell it the root device.

Now it seems like they are never detected, so you can't manually enter it and the delay does not change anything.


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## DozyVan (Mar 7, 2012)

So there is no way to get FreeBSD 9.0 to boot via External drive?


and is their any chance that this issue will be look at in the near future. because I dont have access to internet over lan only over Wifi and my wifiUSB is only windows compatable.


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## kpa (Mar 7, 2012)

I'm able to boot FreeBSD 9.0 from an external drive connected with USB just fine, the drive is an 2.5" SATA drive in this type of enclosure:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Powerfreakz-Ripple-2-5-Inch-External-Enclosure/dp/B002EL417G

Your problem is most likely a "quirk" (manufacturer cutting corners in regards of the standards) with the USB device you're using and to have it fixed you could file a bug report or post at freebsd-usb mailing list.


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## DozyVan (Mar 7, 2012)

What i'm using is: (well the logo thats on my one is diffrent but the box is the same)

http://www.usbgear.com/computer_cable_details.cfm?sku=USB3-25Silver&cats=170&catid=111,170,161,742



and the hard drive off my old laptop. Like I said in the first post I have installed a lot of OS's onto it and just reinstalled Ubuntu10.10 onto it with no problem the only issues I come accross when when trying to put FreeBSD onto it.

I am reaching a stage where I have to get 20M of eithernet cable to connect my PC to the Router. Ethernet cable is selling at 2euro per meter =/


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## Hawk (Mar 7, 2012)

From what I can tell it's either the external device or the computer's BIOS settings. I can boot both my laptops with an SD card but my desktop won't. I can boot the desktop and one notebook with a usb drive, but the other laptop won't. Go figure...
I had the same issue when setting up PC-BSD on a computer I rebuilt for a family member. Turns out there was a hardware issue with the video card. Did you ensure that X11 was using the vesa driver?


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