How to make a bootable USB stick for booting a geli encryptet hard disk?

Frank J. Beckmann frank at barda.agala.net
Thu Apr 20 00:23:37 UTC 2006


Hi,

am Donnerstag, 20. April 2006 00:36 schrieb Terje Elde:
> Frank J. Beckmann wrote:
> >> You might try using a CD-R, then. For this, you'll need access to
> >> another (FreeBSD) system that has sysutils/cdrtools installed on it
> >> (mkisofs is part of sysutils/cdrtools).
> >
> > A CD or DVD is not an option. It has to be an USB device. The big
> > question is why does booting the USB device not work?
>
> This is a classic problem, both with PenDrives and CF cards.  I remember
> I had some issues with this, and finally adopted a method which seemed
> to work reliably.  I stopped working on that stuff, and promptly forgot
> exactly what I did.  I am however fairly certain it involved plugging it
> into a machine supporting it, going to it's BIOS, seeing what geometry
> it used, then using that on FreeBSD.  I am however less sure which of
> the possible modes I used.  Shouldn't be more than a couple of trial and
> error operations before you're up and running.
>
> Two things to keep in mind:  a) You might need to set your BIOS to the
> geometry mode you're using, and b) Some BIOSes differentiate between USB
> "floppies", and USB "harddrives".
>
> Terje (which is tired, and might be thinking all wrong here)

The BIOS of both computers don't tell me anything about the connected USB 
devices. They both treat my USB device as an USB harddrive.
-- 
Bye
Frank


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