Using the ISO releases on USB sticks.

[atar]

Hi!

Just yesterday I've read your article from your site:

http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html

and I would want to know if you've written an article on how to build an 'img' file which has the same content as the 'disc1.iso' file but that will be bootable from a USB stick.

In addition, I'll be happy if you can tell me in more detail why does even after that I've extracted the content of the 'disc1.iso' file to a regular folder and then 'reassemble' it with the command (on Linux): 'xorriso -dev /tmp/my_FreeBSD_iso.iso -boot_image any system_area=boot/boot0 -add /path/to/the/extracted/disc1.iso/folder' and copy the new ISO file into my USB stick with the dd command and then I reboot my PC and I see the boot prompt of the boot0 boot manager but I don't get an option to boot the FreeBSD system I've just created. What's going wrong here?

Regards,

Atar.

> 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.