Re: How to create a bootable USB stick for NetBSD 5.0

[Dustin Marquess <dmarquess%gmail.com@localhost>]

I think I saw this once after I did to my USB drive what I normally do
to HDs: dd /dev/null over it.

I'm sure there's a NetBSD way to fix it, but what I ended up doing it
was putting the USB drive on a Windows machine and using the HP USB
Disk Storage Format Tool to reformat the drive.  Once I did that, I
then put it back on the NetBSD machine and redid the steps.  Worked
fine then.

-Dustin

On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 6:19 PM, <piminx%comcast.net@localhost> wrote:
> "Matthias Scheler" <tron%zhadum.org.uk@localhost> writes:
>
>>On 26 Aug 2009, at 20:48, piminx%comcast.net@localhost wrote:
>>> I'm unclear if I'm doing this correctly.  The current fs on the USB
>>> stick is FAT16.
>>> Should I newfs the USB stick?  If so to what? (A unix fs seems more
>>> sensible)
>
>> Please read the following wiki page:
>
>> http://wiki.netbsd.se/How_to_install_NetBSD_from_an_USB_Memory_Stick
>
>> It explains how to create a bootable NetBSD USB stick. I've
>> used the easy method using  "mkmemstick.sh" with success
>> in the past.
>
> Thanks.  Dustin Marquess suggested this offlist.  After the installboot and I 
> get the "not bootable" message from fdisk, something seems wrong.
>
>  # installboot -v -o timeout=1 /dev/rsd0a /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv1
>  File system:         /dev/rsd0a
>  Primary bootstrap:   /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv1
>  Boot options:        timeout 1, flags 0, speed 9600, ioaddr 0, console pc
>
>  # fdisk  /dev/rsd0d
>  Disk: /dev/rsd0d
>  NetBSD disklabel disk geometry:
>   cylinders: 953, heads: 64, sectors/track: 32 (2048 sectors/cylinder)
>   total sectors: 1952768
>
>  BIOS disk geometry:
>  cylinders: 954, heads: 64, sectors/track: 32 (2048 sectors/cylinder)
>  total sectors: 1952768
>
>  Partition table:
>  0: NetBSD (sysid 169)
>    start 32, size 1952736 (953 MB, Cyls 0-953/31/32), Active
>        PBR is not bootable: Bad magic number (0x0000)
>  1: <UNUSED>
>  2: <UNUSED>
>  3: <UNUSED>
>  Bootselector disabled.
>  First active partition: 0
>
>  # file /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv1
>   /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv1: x86 boot sector
>
>
> Paul
>