Installing FreeBSD Post: 19604

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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Installing FreeBSD Post 19604 by thehoghunter on Sunday 14th of April 2002 12:41:22 PM

04-14-2002

thehoghunter

Guest

Check your media - straight from their web page

Freebsd.org

In general, to create boot floppy images, follow these steps:

Acquire the Boot Floppy Images

The boot discs are available on your installation media in the floppies directory, and can also be downloaded from the floppies directory.

The floppy images have a .flp extension. The floppies/ directory contains a number of different images, and the ones you will need to use depends on the version of FreeBSD you are installing, and in some cases, the hardware you are installing to. In most cases you will need two files, kern.flp and mfsroot.flp, but check README.TXT in the same directory to be sure.

Important: Your FTP program must use binary mode to download these disk images. Some web browsers have been known to use text (or ASCII) mode, which will be apparent if you cannot boot from the disks.

Prepare the Floppy Disks

You must prepare one floppy disk per image file you had to download. It is imperative that these disks are free from defects. The easiest way to test this is to format the disks for yourself. Do not trust pre-formatted floppies.

Important: If you try to install FreeBSD and the installation program crashes, freezes, or otherwise misbehaves, one of the first things to suspect is the floppies. Try writing the floppy image files to some other disks and try again.

Write the Image Files to the Floppy Disks.

The .flp files are not regular files you copy to the disk. Instead, they are images of the complete contents of the disk. This means that you cannot use commands like DOS' copy to write the files. Instead, you must use specific tools to write the images directly to the disk.

If you are creating the floppies on a computer running DOS/Windows, then we provide a tool to do this called fdimage.

If you are using the floppies from the CDROM, and your CDROM is the E: drive, then you would run this:

E:\> tools\fdimage floppies\kern.flp A:

Repeat this command for each .flp file, replacing the floppy disk each time, being sure to label the disks with the name of the file that you copied to them. Adjust the command line as necessary, depending on where you have placed the .flp files. If you do not have the CDROM, then fdimage can be downloaded from the tools directory on the FreeBSD FTP site.

If you are writing the floppies on a Unix system (such as another FreeBSD system) you can use the dd(1) command to write the image files directly to disk. On FreeBSD, you would run:

# dd if=kern.flp of=/dev/fd0

On FreeBSD, /dev/fd0 refers to the first floppy disk (the A: drive). /dev/fd1 would be the B: drive, and so on. Other Unix variants might have different names for the floppy disk devices, and you will need to check the documentation for the system as necessary.

You are now ready to start installing FreeBSD.

thehoghunter

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fddisk

fddisk(8)						      System Manager's Manual							 fddisk(8)

NAME

       fddisk - FDI disk maintenance utility

SYNOPSIS

       /sbin/fddisk options special

OPTIONS

       Unless  this  option  is specified, an attempt to format or to install a file system fails in two cases.  The first failure occurs when the
       device has been opened since the media was inserted.  The second failure occurs if the device is currently opened by another process.  For-
       mats  the  media  to the density appropriate for that media.  Copies a hex dump of sector number PSN to stdout.	Uses the interleave factor
       nnn for formatting.  If specified, ccc indicates an additional intercylinder interleave.  Copies a packed-C hex dump of the entire disk	to
       stdout.	 Specifies silent mode.  This option blocks informational messages from appearing on stderr.  Reads the entire media.  The command
       fails if the utility finds a bad sector.  Waits for media to be inserted into the drive if none is present.  Waits  for	new  media  to	be
       inserted  into the drive if none is present or if the current media has been opened since it was last inserted.	Reads the disk and reports
       on the format of the disk.

OPERANDS

       Specifies an unmounted, raw device pathname.  This device must be an FDI interface (fd).

DESCRIPTION

       The fddisk utility, an FDI (integrated Floppy Disk Interface) disk maintenance program, can format a floppy disk, scan a  floppy  disk  for
       bad  blocks,  and  read	and  write selected blocks.  It can be used in shell scripts for checking the status of floppy disks.  Such status
       checks include checking for or waiting for the presence of media, and checking for or waiting for the user to change the media.

RESTRICTIONS

       The fddisk utility has the following restrictions: You must have read/write access to the device.  The device must  not	be  mounted.   The
       program can only be used with a 3.5-inch floppy disk in the RX26 drive.	In some cases, it might not be possible to format a floppy disk at
       a higher density than it is already formatted.  If this situation occurs, the floppy disk must be bulk erased before it can be  reformatted
       at a higher density.

EXAMPLES

       This  example formats a floppy disk in drive zero: # /sbin/fddisk -fmt /dev/rdisk/floppy0a This example formats a floppy disk in drive zero
       when the disk has been read or written since it was inserted into the drive: # /sbin/fddisk -fmt -f /dev/rdisk/floppy0a

SEE ALSO

       Commands: mount(8), restore(8), uerf(8)

       Files: fd(7)

																	 fddisk(8)

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