Crucial SSD firmware upgrade -- usb flash drive issues

[Sean Cavanaugh]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd-
> questions at freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Gary Aitken
> Sent: Friday, February 01, 2013 12:55 PM
> To: FreeBSD Mailing List
> Subject: Crucial SSD firmware upgrade -- usb flash drive issues
> 
> I've got a Crucial m4 SSD which needs a firmware upgrade.
> From the Crucial website I've downloaded an image which supposedly is an
> iso image bootable from either CD or a usb stick.
> 
> Since the fbsd install images are different for booting from cd and usb
flash
> drives (the flash image is significantly larger), I'm wondering if there's
> anything I need to be aware of when attempting this.
> 
> I tried copying the ssd firmware update image to a flash drive using:
>   dd if=firmwareupdate.iso of=/dev/da0 bs=64k which seemed to work.
> 
> However, when I attempt to boot the device, BIOS complains about it not
> being bootable and says to fix it or select something else which is
bootable.
> 
> I know the drive can be bootable because I used it for the fbsd 9.1 usb
boot
> image and it worked fine.
> 
> The documentation for the SSD firmware upgrade says "Create a Bootable
> USB Drive"
> with the following steps (summarized here, no real content omitted):
> 
>   1.  Start with a newly formatted USB drive
>   2.  Open a USB installer program.  If you don't have one, you may
download
>       a free one such as Universal USB Installer...
>   3.  If you are using the Universal USB Installer, then:
>   3a. At the Step 1 drop down box, scroll to the bottom and select
>       the last option: Try Unlisted Linux ISO
>   3b. Go to step 2 (in the pgm) and browse to the firmware ISO that you
>       downloaded earlier
>   3c. Go to step 3 (in the pgm) and select the flash drive on which you
>       want to install the ISO
>   3d. Click the Create button and click Format E:\Drive
>   3e. A sequence of screens will appear and disappear...
> 
> The above is all highly confusing to me, as it's not clear who's doing
what.
> I'm guessing the "Universal Installer Program" actually writes a boot
block
> and then the bootable image someplace beyond that, and the iso image
> supplied is not really a complete bootable image for a flash drive -- it's
> missing the boot blocks.
> 
> Can anyone suggest a way to create a bootable flash drive using this
image?
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Please see the below site for a script to convert the .ISO into a .IMG that
can be dd written to the thumb drive

http://www.daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=4361