For this tutorial I am going to write a 2GB pfSense image to a 4GB Compact Flash card using Physdiskwrite a command line utility for Windows. Sometimes the images may be compressed, extract the contents before attempting to write them to a card.
It would be wise to place both physdiskwrite.exe and the .img file in the same directory.
Let’s Start…
Open a command prompt in Windows with Administrator rights(necessary) and move to the directory where Physdiskwrite and the image are located.
C:\Users\Luis\Desktop>cd tools C:\Users\Luis\Desktop\tools
To find all available disk use the following command.
physdiskwrite.exe -a
physdiskwrite v0.5.2 by Manuel Kasper <mk@neon1.net>
Searching for physical drives...
Information for \\.\PhysicalDrive0:
Windows: cyl: 77825
tpc: 255
spt: 63
C/H/S: 16383/16/63
Model: WDC WD6401AALS-00J7B1
Serial number: WD-WMATV3658664
Firmware rev.: 05.00K05
Information for \\.\PhysicalDrive1:
Windows: cyl: 60801
tpc: 255
spt: 63
C/H/S: 16383/16/63
Model: WDC WD5001AALS-00L3B2
Serial number: WD-WMASZ0056513
Firmware rev.: 01.03B01
Information for \\.\PhysicalDrive2:
Windows: cyl: 924
tpc: 128
spt: 63
C/H/S: 7395/16/63
Model: ELITE PRO CF CARD 4GB
Serial number: 5B021A040
Firmware rev.: Ver3.05K
Information for \\.\PhysicalDrive3:
Windows: cyl: 30401
tpc: 255
spt: 63
Which disk do you want to write? (0..3) Which disk do you want to write? (0..3)The output above tells us that PhysicalDrive2 is the name of our 4GB Compact Flash. With that in mind we are going to tell Physdiskwrite to write our image file pfSense-1.2.3-2g-20091207-1914-
nanobsd.img to the second drive.
Note: You need to use the -u parameter on cards bigger than 2GB, this is due to a safety precaution.
physdiskwrite.exe -u pfSense-1.2.3-2g-20091207-1914-nanobsd.img
physdiskwrite v0.5.2 by Manuel Kasper <mk@neon1.net>
Searching for physical drives...
Information for \\.\PhysicalDrive0:
Windows: cyl: 77825
tpc: 255
spt: 63
C/H/S: 16383/16/63
Model: WDC WD6401AALS-00J7B1
Serial number: WD-WMATV3658664
Firmware rev.: 05.00K05
Information for \\.\PhysicalDrive1:
Windows: cyl: 60801
tpc: 255
spt: 63
C/H/S: 16383/16/63
Model: WDC WD5001AALS-00L3B2
Serial number: WD-WMASZ0056513
Firmware rev.: 01.03B01
Information for \\.\PhysicalDrive2:
Windows: cyl: 924
tpc: 128
spt: 63
C/H/S: 7395/16/63
Model: ELITE PRO CF CARD 4GB
Serial number: 5B021A040
Firmware rev.: Ver3.05K
Information for \\.\PhysicalDrive3:
Windows: cyl: 30401
tpc: 255
spt: 63Specify the number of the disk you wish to write to, in this case the disk is number 2.
Which disk do you want to write? (0..3) 2 WARNING: that disk is larger than 2 GB! Make sure you're not accidentally overwriting your primary hard disk! Proceeding on your own risk...
Make this is the disk you want to overwrite, if so type y and press Enter to start.
About to overwrite the contents of disk 2 with new data. Proceed? (y/n) y 2001194496/2001194496 bytes written in total
Depending on the quality of the card and amount of data the process may take from 5 minutes to 10 minutes(may vary).
Conslusion
Compact Flash cards offer some benefits like no movable parts and quiet operation, if you intend to install FreeNAS, pfSense, or any other operating system in a compact flash then this tutorial will be useful.
October 31, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Hi, well i tried it on 5 of my USBs and it got damaged, doesn’t work anymore tried to format it but with no luck
thank you so much for nothing!
October 31, 2010 at 4:15 pm
First of all this tutorial was done on Compact Flash card, second its highly unlikely the USB drives are damaged.
I’ve seen this behaviour where Windows is unable to format a drive. In this cases you should use a Live CD like Parted Magic to format the drives.
Last but not least, where are your manners!.
March 4, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Is it necessary to use a smaller image on a larger card? I’m trying to write the 4 gig image to a 4 gig card and it won’t seem to let me, even with the 2 gig limit turned off.
November 25, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Hi Bobby,
If you haven’t resolved your issue yet, I offer this advice. Remove the FD card ad reinsert it. Windows will offer to format it – decline this offer. Now follow the steps described by Luis. It should work for larger or same sized image using this method. It works for me.
November 25, 2011 at 12:40 pm
Luis,
Your instructions have worked perfectly for me on CF cards of 2 and 4 GB. 2 GB cards are becoming more scarce everyday. I’ve had difficulty with the latest version of pfsense, though. It installs on the CF card, but does not boot in my Alix (no VGA, embedded platform) computer. Any thoughts?
December 2, 2011 at 12:08 am
Have you tried checking the integrity of the image, might be corrupted.