Prepping disks for usage

[Gerald A]

Hi all,
I know that FreeBSD can't natively do the disk work needed for booting, and
there are various shims and hacks needed to get this working.

I have access to a machine that doesn't have a hard disk in it, and I'd like
to add one. Ideally I'd like to get FreeBSD working on it, but I'm guessing
there are several prep steps needed before that. Any clues or useful
pointers to this?

Thanks,
Gerald.