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Date:      Fri, 16 Mar 2007 10:32:55 -0400
From:      Jerry McAllister <jerrymc@msu.edu>
To:        Craig Rodrigues <rodrigc@crodrigues.org>
Cc:        freebsd-fs@freebsd.org, freebsd-bugs@freebsd.org, Fluffles <etc@fluffles.net>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, Barry Pederson <bp@barryp.org>
Subject:   Re: boot2 can't boot from USB?
Message-ID:  <20070316143254.GC75446@gizmo.acns.msu.edu>
In-Reply-To: <20070315213045.GA11147@crodrigues.org>
References:  <20070120073117.GB60202@x12.dk> <200703061246.09687.antik@bsd.ee> <45ED5850.6050506@nipsi.de> <200703061420.36980.antik@bsd.ee> <20070307135017.GC2864@garage.freebsd.pl> <45F2EEBD.6070007@barryp.org> <86ps7evniu.fsf@dwp.des.no> <45F91CF0.6010506@fluffles.net> <20070315213045.GA11147@crodrigues.org>

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On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 05:30:45PM -0400, Craig Rodrigues wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 11:16:16AM +0100, Fluffles wrote:
> > If so, i may have found some bugs / problems with boot2. Long ago i
> > tried to make a bootable USB pendrive with FreeBSD 6.1 on it. It failed
> > to boot with the message "invalid slice" and i got a prompt like:
> 
> I have worked a lot with getting FreeBSD to boot off of USB devices,
> and have gotten it to work.
> Specifically, I have worked with USB pen drives, and USB CD-ROM drives.
> It *is* possible, but what I have found is the following:
> - on some motherboards, you need to explicitly configure the BIOS
>   to boot off of a USB device (either a disk, a CD-ROM, or a "Zip drive")
> - booting off of USB-CDROM devices seems to be much more reliable than
>   booting off of USB pen drives
> - if you have an "older" motherboard BIOS, say from about 3-4 years ago,
>   booting off of USB devices is more unreliable, than a "newer" motherboard
>   BIOS
> - if I have 5 different models of USB pen drives, each model may behave
>   differently, and may or may not boot.  Same for USB CD-ROM drives,
>   but I've found CD-ROM drives to be more reliable than pen drives.
> 
> So to summarize: 
> - booting off of USB devices seems to be sensitive
>   to your motherboard BIOS, and the firmware written into your USB device.
> - booting off of USB CD-ROM drives seems to be more reliable than booting
>   off of USB pen drives

Just to add to your list, I have been successful booting from
a USB floppy drive.   I don't remember the floppy drive make, but
I have used it on both a Dell Optiplex and a IBM (Lenova) laptop.

////jerry

> 
> There is no logic to this, I've just found this out from trial and error,
> and banging my head a lot.
> 
> -- 
> Craig Rodrigues        
> rodrigc@crodrigues.org
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> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-bugs
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