From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Sep 24 15:57:27 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AC3BC16A418 for ; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:57:27 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from sonicy@otenet.gr) Received: from aiolos.otenet.gr (aiolos.otenet.gr [195.170.0.93]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3954413C447 for ; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:57:27 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from sonicy@otenet.gr) Received: from freebsdgr.dyndns.org (athedsl-322415.home.otenet.gr [85.72.115.13]) (authenticated bits=0) by aiolos.otenet.gr (8.13.8/8.13.8/Debian-3) with ESMTP id l8OFvPh2020963; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:57:25 +0300 Message-ID: <46F7DE65.2080003@otenet.gr> Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:57:25 +0300 From: Manolis Kiagias User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 (X11/20070806) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jerahmy Pocott References: <74C0DBE7-41EA-42FA-AE01-D82A9FAE3162@optusnet.com.au> In-Reply-To: <74C0DBE7-41EA-42FA-AE01-D82A9FAE3162@optusnet.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: FreeBSD Questions Subject: Re: Booting to Sysinstall X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:57:27 -0000 Jerahmy Pocott wrote: > Hello, > > Okay so here is the situation: > Server has dead fd and cd drives, or maybe none at all. You want to > install FreeBSD > on it. > > The idea I had was to create a small partition, copy the contents of a > cd into, set it > to boot off that partition, reboot and it would boot up into sysinstall. > > Would this be possible? Or is it a dumb idea? > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to > "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > > The problem with this approach is, you actually need to boot the FreeBSD kernel to continue with the install. Just by marking a partition as bootable, will not make it boot, and neither copying the FreeBSD CD contents will. You have to write a suitable boot sector that will load the rest of the OS, be it DOS, Windows, FreeBSD or whatever. And the fact remains, to install FreeBSD you have to boot into the FreeBSD kernel. After that it would be no problem installing from files on a FAT partition. It would certainly be a lot less trouble to connect a floppy drive, boot from it, and continue with your partition based install. In fact, in your case I would simply remove the disk, place it on another machine, do a base install, copy the CD contents to a folder, move it back to the other machine and continue from there. If, in fact, the machine has fast internet access, the basic setup is all you need. Manolis