Bootable usb-stick, need help, sos


 
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Operating Systems BSD Bootable usb-stick, need help, sos
# 1  
Old 03-25-2016
Bootable usb-stick, need help, sos

I would probably set all my rubber points here to get some real help for creating a boot device on a usb-stick. There is no CD-drive on this machine, thats why I need to use a usb-stick. And scrumming in a CD-drive to fuddle around in the fstab or something like that is out of reach.
My wisdom so far told me to type the following code to shovel the iso to the usb-stick, but under bsd it does not.
Code:
dd if=/your/path/to/distro.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=16k

the bsd root terminal tells me

Code:
dd: /dev/sdx: Operation not supported

no matter if upper or lower case the x, no other explanation naming the device sdc1, sdb1.
Another commandline like

Code:
cp /path/to/distro.iso /dev/sdc1

gives me no result either. The usb-stick is formatted, but even typing in the root terminal

Code:
mkfs.ext3 -I /dev/sdc1

it tells me

Code:
command not found

I am using ghostbsd.
Any hints are highly appreciated. Thanks in advance. to correct my error I typed
Code:
fdisk -BI /dev/da0

to make it work on a non-BSD system I would furthermore type
Code:
newfs_msdosfs /dev/da0s1

but I get the message
Code:
fdisk: Failed to write MBR. Try to use gpart(8)

Doing so,
Code:
gpart -BI /dev/da0

I spend the weekend and more time reading and testing all ways to format that usb-stick, so may there is someone who can give me a clue and to get the iso on that same usb-drive. The only information about the usb-drive with Gsmartcontrol about the usb-drive and gpart in the root terminal I can get is the following, one shows me the entire 8GB, command line tells the following
Code:
 gpart show da0 =>     64  8292651  da0  GPT  (7.5G) [CORRUPT]        64     1268    1  ms-basic-data  (634K)      1332     5760    2  efi  (2.8M)      7092  8285620    3  ms-basic-data  (4.0G)   8292712        3       - free -  (1.5K)

some other attempts to wipe out the partition or slice
Code:
gpart destroy da0  Device busy

May someone can help, thanks in advance.

Last edited by 1in10; 03-26-2016 at 12:48 AM.. Reason: some progress
# 2  
Old 03-26-2016
There's quite of lot of knowledge needed to create a bootable USB stick manually from the command line. I've forgotten more than I can remember about that because nowadays I always cheat.

Do you want to know how to do this manually as a learning exercise or do you just want to get it done anyway you can?

Do you have a Windows machine available to you?

I see the media you are starting with is an iso and you can't just dd an iso image to a USB stick and expect it to boot.

My preference would be to put the iso file on a Windows platform and then download (free) a copy of Rufus. Tell Rufus that it's an iso file as input and it will do the whole thing for you.

If you don't have a Windows box take a look at Unetbootin. That will do the same thing on unix/Linux.

Of course, the bios of your machine that you want to boot from USB must support that and have that function enabled but I guess you already know that.

It depends what you want/need to learn about this but, as I say, I just cheat. Other members on here might be able to tell you how to do it manually but I can't remember all the details.

Last edited by hicksd8; 03-26-2016 at 08:39 AM..
This User Gave Thanks to hicksd8 For This Post:
# 3  
Old 03-26-2016
just bsd at reach, unetbootin on bsd I never tried

I will have to do it the hard way, no windows or linux at reach. Format a usb-stick, make it bootable, put on the iso just to set up a linux without a CD-drive but UEFI, my true honey.

Last edited by 1in10; 03-26-2016 at 10:34 AM.. Reason: grammar and spelling
# 4  
Old 03-26-2016
Okay, if you've have no Windows box and no Linux box I think you'd better tell us all what platform you are using to write to the USB stick.

You're trying to create a bootable USB stick for GhostBSD?

Last edited by hicksd8; 03-26-2016 at 11:16 AM..
# 5  
Old 03-27-2016
dmesg for pluggable usb-drive

I am working on both, two machines, one with GhostBSD, the second (today) PCBSD. So I tried a lot with the command line gpart(8) like this.
The following steps had to be done, with some success just to get a simple usb-stick to be seen and formatted.
It is about to create a bootable usb-stick with a linux iso for an UEFI machine, to be created on that very one BSD machines.
Code:
gpart destroy -F da0
da0 destroyed

Code:
newfs_msdos /dev/da0
newfs_msdos: trim 16 sectors to adjust to a multiple of 32
/dev/da0: 2001440 sectors in 62545 FAT16 clusters (16384 bytes/cluster)
BytesPerSec=512 SecPerClust=32 ResSectors=1 FATs=2 RootDirEnts=512 Media=0xf0 FATsecs=245 SecPerTrack=32 Heads=64 HiddenSecs=0 HugeSectors=2001984

I tried
Code:
newfs_ext2 /dev/da0

with no success.

This one shows at least what has been done so far

Code:
diskinfo -v da0

But any further gpart command results in

Code:
gpart add -t pclinuxos64-mate-2016.03-boot -l gpboot -b 40 -s 512K da0
gpart: Invalid number of arguments.

gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptboot -i 1 da0
gpart: No such geom: da0.

It is an iso of about 795MB, nothing special.

Once again creating the drive (I guess not the slice on it)

Code:
 gpart create -s gpt da0
da0 created

Make it e UEFI memory stick of a certain size (I took 820MB)

Code:
gpart add -t efi -s 820MB da0
da0p1 added

gpart bootcode -b /boot/mbr da0
bootcode written to da0

What comes now is not what I want to!!!! But it is part of that instruction.......
THIS IS WHAT I DON'T WANT FOR SURE, I AM AIMING FOR THAT DISTRO MENTIONED ABOVE!

Code:
# gpart add -t freebsd da0
# gpart set -a active -i 1 da0

So should I type like this????

Code:
gpart add -t pclinuxos64-mate-2016.03
gpart set -a active -i 1 da0

Here comes a sample how to create a boot.iso (note: I am trying to copy an .iso)
This is taken from Disk Setup On FreeBSD

I did not yet dare to haul it all over, thats why I am asking here.
Code:
dd if=/dev/zero of=efiboot.img bs=4K count=100
mdconfig -a -t vnode -f efiboot.img
newfs_msdos -F 12 -m 0xf8 /dev/md0
mount -t msdosfs /dev/md0  /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/efi/boot
cp loader.efi /mnt/efi/bootx64.efi
umount /mnt
mdconfig -d -u 0

and finally making the ISO image.

Code:
makefs -t cd9660 -o bootimage='i386;efiboot.img' -o
no-emul-boot -o rockridge -o lable="UEFItest" -o publisher="test" uefi-test.iso image

I will get me another coffee, later on I will try again the part. This machine does not offer a CD-drive, so it has to be done the hard way. Or I will go to burn a DVD or CD in a netcafe. And last but not least, I want to erase a usb-stick that is already a bootable-usb-drive, but this doesn't work at all with gpart(8).

after a while I came across not only the man pages but some other explanation, that should help, but it doesn't
First create a partition
Code:
gpart create -s gpt da0

then having a look
Code:
gpart show da0
=>

slicing and dicing a partition

Code:
gpart add -t mbr da0
gpart: geom 'da0': Operation not permitted

gpart add -t mbr da0s1
gpart: No such geom: da0s1.

newfs /dev/da0s1
newfs: /dev/da0s1: could not find special device

newfs /dev/da0
newfs: /dev/da0: failed to open disk for writing

This is all I get from the device

Code:
gpart list da0
Geom name: da0
modified: false
state: OK
fwheads: 255
fwsectors: 63
last: 15794142
first: 34
entries: 128
scheme: GPT
Consumers:
1. Name: da0
   Mediasize: 8086618112 (7.5G)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Mode: r0w0e0

After reading that one first delete the slice and then destroy it, even the GEOM label, I did not succeed doing so at all.


and plugging in that very specific usb-stick again and typing

Code:
dmesg
umass0: <USBest Technology USB Mass Storage Device, class 0/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 3> on usbus7
umass0:  SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x8100
umass0:5:0:-1: Attached to scbus5
da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus5 target 0 lun 0
da0: <  0.00> Removable Direct Access SCSI-2 device
da0: Serial Number 09022453564397
da0: 40.000MB/s transfers
da0: 7712MB (15794176 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 983C)
da0: quirks=0x2<NO_6_BYTE>

but fdisk and gpart(8) are not the solution.



later on
unmounting the drive, as usually done in gui of Gpart I typed (note I am on the root terminal command line)

Code:
newfs /dev/da0
/dev/da0: 7712.0MB (15794176 sectors) block size 32768, fragment size 4096
    using 13 cylinder groups of 626.09MB, 20035 blks, 80256 inodes.
super-block backups (for fsck_ffs -b #) at:
 192, 1282432, 2564672, 3846912, 5129152, 6411392, 7693632, 8975872, 10258112,
 11540352, 12822592, 14104832, 15387072

great, but it does not accept

Code:
newfs_msdos -F32 gpt da0
newfs_msdos: /dev/gpt: No such file or directory

doing this (as mentioned above)

Code:
dd if=/dev/zero of=efiboot.img bs=4K count=100
mdconfig -a -t vnode -f efiboot.img
newfs_msdos -F 12 -m 0xf8 /dev/md0
mount -t msdosfs /dev/md0  /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/efi/boot
cp loader.efi /mnt/efi/bootx64.efi
umount /mnt
mdconfig -d -u 0

getting this

Code:
mount -t msdosfs /dev/md0  /mnt

mkdir -p /mnt/efi/boot

cp loader.efi /mnt/efi/bootx64.efi
cp: loader.efi: No such file or directory
umount /mntmdconfig -d -u 0

This remains unsolved, on the list to be done the hard way, just learned that I first delete a slice and afterwards I destroy it. Another laptop and a DVD saved my day. If I find a way to create a bootable usb-stick from a BSD machine to set up a linux image, I put it here.

Last edited by 1in10; 03-29-2016 at 07:12 PM.. Reason: remains unsolved, but on the list to get things done
# 6  
Old 01-18-2017
Bootable usb-drive

Well it took me sometime until I discovered on distrowatch.com a kind of new distro. So I loaded it down an here it comes, it is the good old unetbootin (unetbootin-source-625.tar.gz) that handles my task just the way it should, creating a bootable usb-drive.

Going one step further I could do so as well with bleachbit, but I see what is left after the cleaning, I hang on to my command line

Last edited by rbatte1; 01-18-2017 at 06:47 AM.. Reason: Merged in to original thread, so removed the comment about old thread being closed.
# 7  
Old 01-18-2017
For debian iso, for instance, a simple dd on whole device (not partition) should create usb bootable disk.

As i see online, it should work for PCBSD as well, if whole device is used not partition.

This will, of course leave no space, but you can resize carefully after (with parted or similar tool, dunno in BSD really) and create additional partition and filesystem from remaining space.

My suggestion is, if machine supports PXE and has network, use it.
It's much easier to handle, supporting all kinds of goodies.
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