# How to prepare USB HDD from FreeBSD CD ISO image?



## stevegoa (Aug 28, 2014)

I have downloaded the FreeBSD 10 x86 CD ISO image file.

I have a Dell Optiplex Pentium 4 2.66Ghz PC which supports booting from USB.

I have a 500 GB external USB hard drive.

I'm using Windows 8.1 Pro on a separate laptop.

Question: How to copy the ISO image to the external hard drive so that I can use it to install FreeBSD on the PC?


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## wblock@ (Aug 29, 2014)

The CD image is made for a CD or DVD and cannot be easily converted to a hard drive image.

Download the memstick image instead, and dd(1) it to the drive as shown in the Handbook: https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bsdinstall-pre.html#bsdinstall-usb.


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