Howto: Prepare USB key with FreeDOS using FreeBSD

[Boris Samorodov]

On Fri, 12 Oct 2007 18:35:08 +0200 O. Hartmann wrote:

> Well, I have a bunch of TYAN S2925B based boxes, all without floppy
> drives. For BIOS flash preparation I need an installation media and
> due to the fact I do not have a Windows XP box or FreeDOS box I need
> my laptop for creation of a bootable USB key media with the
> appropriate BIOS flash images and flashing tools.
> It seems to be a desaster. Every Wiki I visited looking for the
> subject referes to Gentoo/FreeDOS or highly complicated voodoo
> sessions installing first some files on floppy drive and the creating
> a bootable USB key ... blabla.
> Sorry, but I do not have FreeDOS running nor do I have Linux/Gentoo or
> Windows XP, I run FreeBSD on all of my machines. But in the age of
> legacy free computers, were floppy drives seems to be not essential
> anymore I run into massif problems having a legacy free server from
> TYAN without the ability taking any BIOS images from an USB key :-(
> The problem is I picked up some memory issues which have been solved
> with one of the newer BIOS images so I desperately need an update
> solution.

> Does anyone do have an idea?

It is not an answer to your question. It's just how I do
it. Limitation: I use only PXE-capable cards.

1. Set up a dhcp server. In my case all servers are located at one
   hardware server.
2. Set up a tftp server.
3. Use pxelinux [1] to boot the needed binary.

1. Dhcp config (partial):
-----
host temp1 {
  hardware ethernet <MAC-address>;
  fixed-address <ip-address>;
  filename "pxelinux.0";
  server-name "booting.domain.com";
  next-server booting.domain.com;
  option host-name "temp1.domain.com";
}
-----


[1] http://syslinux.zytor.com/pxe.php


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