Using the ISO releases on USB sticks.

[Michael Powell]

Warren Block wrote:

> On Sun, 14 Sep 2014, atar wrote:
> 
>> Just wanted to know please why does the command 'dd
>> if=FreeBSD-i386-disc1.iso of=myUSB-stick' doesn't make the USB stick
>> bootable like it would does for CDROMs or DVDs? What's the difference
>> between CDROM and an USB?
> 
> [top-posting deleted, please don't do that]
> 
> dd just copies bytes from one place to another.  An ISO image file is
> not bootable from a hard disk or USB stick, which require a different
> format and bootcode.
> 
> Some Linux systems use install files that are dual-purpose and can work
> from CD or USB.  FreeBSD does not do that.
> 
> Some writing utilities can take apart an ISO image and convert it to a
> bootable USB stick.  I don't know if any of those work for FreeBSD ISO
> images any more.

There is an FreeBSD-10.0-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img here:

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/amd64/amd64/ISO-IMAGES/10.0/

Haven't used this approach yet myself (been meaning to try it), but I 
believe dd'ing this image to the USB stick is what will work.

-Mike