How to put a FreeBSD installation ISO onto a USB Flash Drive

Assumes USB drive uses device da0, which is usually the case. Modify device names as needed. Unless special permissions have been set up, the commands usually need to be run as root.

./fbsd-install-iso2img.sh ./8.2-RELEASE-amd64-bootonly.iso ./8.2-RELEASE-amd64-bootonly.img

Use fbsd-install-iso2img.sh script to convert the ISO into an appropriate disk image. (Paths assume script and all files are in the current directory; modify paths as appropriate.)

NOTE THAT MEMORYSTICK IMAGES ARE NOW AVAILABLE FOR FREEBSD STARTING WITH VERSION 8, SO THE ISO-TO-IMG CONVERSION STEP ABOVE IS NOT NEEDED. Just download and use the memorystick image with the steps below.

fdisk -BI /dev/da0

Create a bootable BSD slice on the USB flash drive, using the entire disk. THIS DESTROYS ALL DATA ON THE FLASH DRIVE! (Ignore the "Geom not found" warning.)

bsdlabel -B -w da0s1

Put a BSD label on the flash drive and copy bootstrap code to it.

newfs -U -L FreeBSDboot /dev/da0s1a

Create a FreeBSD file system on the flash drive.

dd if=8.2-RELEASE-amd64-bootonly.img of=/dev/da0 bs=10k conv=sync

Copy the image file to the USB flash drive.

References

The first script can be found in this FreeBSD mailing list message by Clifton Royston. (local copy) The original version of the script was by Dario Freni.

Like the script above, the rest of the steps are from the FreeBSD mailing list, specifically this messsage by Andrew Snow, which was a follow up to Clifton's message.