Re: changing ext. USB disk to UEFI boot

On 4/2/24 09:18, Matthias Apitz wrote:
 >
 > I own (for many years) an external USB disk of 1TB to test new FreeBSD
 > versions on my laptops before installing the system from source to it's
 > hard disk. This external USB disk boots fine on all my amd64 laptops.
 >
 > A new acquired ASUS laptop now detects only UEFI boot devices. I'm
 > attaching below what the FreeBSD's Wiki says and what the current
 > 'gpart list da0' shows about the USB disk.
 >
 > How can I modify the partition da0p1 to UEFI without touching the already
 > installed da0p2? Is it enough to carry out the creation of the MS-DOS
 > file system in da0p1 and copy the boot loader /boot/loader.efi to it?

If it was bigger it would have worked. With such a small da0s1, consider 
deleting the swap partition, make a UEFI partition from part of its 
space, then make a swap partition from what remains. You would then have 
both UEFI and legacy booting available while avoiding a reformat. 
Manpages for loader.efi(8) and uefi(8) explain where it can go and what 
to name it.

 > Thanks
 >
 >
 > https://wiki.freebsd.org/UEFI
 >
 > Bootable UEFI memory stick or Hard Disk
 >
 > To test UEFI booting on a memory stick or a hard disk,
 > create a GPT partition table with a small EFI partition and the rest
 > of the space dedicated to a FreeBSD UFS partition:
 >
 > # gpart create -s gpt da0
 > # gpart add -t efi -s 40M da0
 > # gpart add -t freebsd-ufs da0
 > # newfs_msdos -F 32 -c 1 /dev/da0p1
 > # mount -t msdosfs /dev/da0p1 /mnt
 > # mkdir -p /mnt/EFI/BOOT
 > # cp /boot/loader.efi /mnt/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.efi
 > # umount /mnt
 > # newfs -U -L FreeBSD /dev/da0p2
 > # ...
 >
 > Current state of the drive da0:
 >
 > # gpart list da0
 >
 > Geom name: da0
 > modified: false
 > state: OK
 > fwheads: 255
 > fwsectors: 63
 > last: 1953525127
 > first: 40
 > entries: 128
 > scheme: GPT
 > Providers:
 > 1. Name: da0p1
 >     Mediasize: 524288 (512K)
 >     Sectorsize: 512
 >     Stripesize: 4096
 >     Stripeoffset: 0
 >     Mode: r0w0e0
 >     efimedia: HD(1,GPT,a555f52a-90e5-11e9-a3c2-90489a929e43,0x28,0x400)
 >     rawuuid: a555f52a-90e5-11e9-a3c2-90489a929e43
 >     rawtype: 83bd6b9d-7f41-11dc-be0b-001560b84f0f
 >     label: extboot
 >     length: 524288
 >     offset: 20480
 >     type: freebsd-boot
 >     index: 1
 >     end: 1063
 >     start: 40
 > 2. Name: da0p2
 >     Mediasize: 274877906944 (256G)
 >     Sectorsize: 512
 >     Stripesize: 4096
 >     Stripeoffset: 0
 >     Mode: r0w0e0
 >     efimedia: 
HD(2,GPT,e1c1853d-90e5-11e9-a3c2-90489a929e43,0x800,0x20000000)
 >     rawuuid: e1c1853d-90e5-11e9-a3c2-90489a929e43
 >     rawtype: 516e7cb6-6ecf-11d6-8ff8-00022d09712b
 >     label: extrootfs
 >     length: 274877906944
 >     offset: 1048576
 >     type: freebsd-ufs
 >     index: 2
 >     end: 536872959
 >     start: 2048
 > 3. Name: da0p3
 >     Mediasize: 2147483648 (2.0G)
 >     Sectorsize: 512
 >     Stripesize: 4096
 >     Stripeoffset: 0
 >     Mode: r0w0e0
 >     efimedia: 
HD(3,GPT,0bf60f9c-958a-11e9-8b7f-90489a929e43,0x20000800,0x400000)
 >     rawuuid: 0bf60f9c-958a-11e9-8b7f-90489a929e43
 >     rawtype: 516e7cb5-6ecf-11d6-8ff8-00022d09712b
 >     label: extswap
 >     length: 2147483648
 >     offset: 274878955520
 >     type: freebsd-swap
 >     index: 3
 >     end: 541067263
 >     start: 536872960
 > 4. Name: da0p4
 >     Mediasize: 723177701376 (674G)
 >     Sectorsize: 512
 >     Stripesize: 4096
 >     Stripeoffset: 0
 >     Mode: r0w0e0
 >     efimedia: 
HD(4,GPT,1f6fb912-958a-11e9-8b7f-90489a929e43,0x20400800,0x54306000)
 >     rawuuid: 1f6fb912-958a-11e9-8b7f-90489a929e43
 >     rawtype: 516e7cb6-6ecf-11d6-8ff8-00022d09712b
 >     label: extbackupfs
 >     length: 723177701376
 >     offset: 277026439168
 >     type: freebsd-ufs
 >     index: 4
 >     end: 1953523711
 >     start: 541067264
 > Consumers:
 > 1. Name: da0
 >     Mediasize: 1000204883968 (932G)
 >     Sectorsize: 512
 >     Stripesize: 4096
 >     Stripeoffset: 0
 >     Mode: r0w0e0
 >
 >