[dot]USB files - How does one use them?

[Janz]

Hi All,

Searched and Googled and not one place to explain using the USB extension'ed files?

Anyone please have some time to explain how one would use these files direct to USB?
E.g. like "FreeNAS-9.2.1.9-RELEASE-x64.usb" - how will i install it/ use it.

Thanks,
Jan

 

[danb35]

You should be able to image them directly to a USB stick using dd, win32diskimager, or something similar. However, if you're already running an earlier version, the GUI Upgrade package is the one you want.

 

[Janz]

Thanks DanB,
Tried that actually - writing to a USB with win32 disk imager - it wrote about 200 Meg unknown partition of my 7GB USB Flash
But no boot - lots of errors - cannot acces dao1 etc etc
Tried another new USB stick
Same diff
FYI - i tried to image the img.xz (full, not upgrade) and it also failed....
So it seems that i am between "bad" releases:
9.2.1.7
9.2.1.9

Trying 9.3 now.....
but so far ..it installs to usb (yaay) - but boot fails on mounroot: waiting for iso9660/Freenas_install . .. grrr..

As for .usb extension (it is NOT a img style "zip".....very new and strange to me so i asked about it.
Plus what would the SHA number be useful for
So thanks for the reply - i will assume it is a "write to usb" direct via w32 writer and ignore errors as release errors (the dao access complaints)

thx

 

[dlavigne]

Search for "usb" at http://olddoc.freenas.org/index.php/9.2.1.7_ERRATA.

Also, if you are using win32diskimager, you may have to do this (from the docs):

If the burned image fails to boot and the image was burned using a Windows system, wipe the USB stick before trying a second burn using a utility such as Active@ KillDisk. Otherwise, the second burn attempt will fail as Windows does not understand the partition which was written from the image file. Be very careful that you specify the USB stick when using a wipe utility!

 

[danb35]

The SHA number is a SHA256 checksum, which you can (should) use to confirm that the file wasn't altered in transit. How you'd do that depends on the OS you're running, but there are tools for all common (and some uncommon) OSs.