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

[Chavdar Ivanov <ci4ic4%gmail.com@localhost>]

2009/8/27 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.

There may be something here. Presently I have at least three NetBSD
instances booting off USB devices - two from external hard disks, one
from 4GB stick. I had indeed formatted the stick with the HP tool you
mention and it worked just fine.

>
> -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>

I get the same on the stick (apart from the numbers - it's 2GB one).


>>  Bootselector disabled.
>>  First active partition: 0
>>
>>  # file /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv1
>>   /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv1: x86 boot sector
>>
>>
>> Paul
>>
>

Chavdar Ivanov

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