"This is a FreeNAS data disk and cannot boot system"

[markwill]

I know, I know...this is a bit of a common topic here. But I have searched the forums and nothing I have found so far has helped me resolve this. Any help would be appreciated.

I have a test machine where I installed FreeNAS to assess it with a view to setting up my own NAS server eventually. I boot from a USB drive and have added just one (of four) other disks to a pool, as below. The other drives - including the one that boots to Windows (ada1 below) haven't been (intentionally) used.

I receive the message above when I try to manually boot to that second drive listed. I have also gone into BIOS to verify the boot order (and tried changing, saving and then moving back to the original order), but to no avail.

In short, all my manual attempts, as well as messing with the boot order, results in this message. The forum posts I have found, to date, suggest I verify/save the boot order in BIOS but that's not working.

Any ideas on how I can resolve this?

 

[markwill]

PS: Just for the heck of it, I tried booting from one of the disks I use for data under Windows (ada2 and ada3 above). I obviously didn't expect them to boot but, sure enough, I also see the FreeNAS message on these too.

Does FreeNAS write to all disks it locates, even when they are not used?

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

Does FreeNAS write to all disks it locates, even when they are not used?

What do you mean? What do you expect FreeNAS to write to a disk which it isn't configured to use?

I receive the message above when I try to manually boot to that second drive listed. I have also gone into BIOS to verify the boot order (and tried changing, saving and then moving back to the original order), but to no avail.

To clarify, you get that message when you change your BIOS boot order to boot off of ada1, which you expect to be a windows-only disk?

Also, to ask a somewhat obvious question; did you try to do anything with the windows disk in your FreeNAS setup?

Finally, it may be worth noting that the adax number is not necessarily a permanent identifier. What this could mean is that in the image above ada1 might not be the windows disk. When you try to change your boot order; what is the serial number of the device you expect to boot into Windows? And which device is that in your list above? Is it possible that your "TestPool" was created from your Windows disk? Keep in mind that FreeNAS won't protect you from deleting data on disks you add to the pool unless it thinks they are FreeNAS disks. I believe it warns you when you create a new pool with a disk that any data on the disk will be lost.

Anyway, not exactly an answer but maybe something to help get a better idea?

 

[markwill]

Thank you for the response.

To the first question, my expectation was that nothing would be written at all to the disks that are not used by FreeNAS. But, as someone who has just started using FreeNAS, I was wondering if I missed something about it possibly "tagging" disks on some way, even those that are not associated with any pool, etc. In short, I think we're saying the same thing - FreeNAS should leave these alone. As I say, just double checking.

To your next question, yes, ada1 is the Windows boot drive but I receive this message when I try to boot with it. In fact, no matter which of the drives I try to boot from, I see the same message (apart from da0, which does boot FreeNAS as expected).

When I installed FreeNAS I only configured a single data drive (this is all for testing), which is ada0. I have never (knowingly) used ada1, 2 or 3 in any way and it seems like the screenshot is consistent with that.

I have been basing my observations off the disk sizes, not just the identifiers, but you make a good point about the serial numbers and I will double check.

I will dig a bit deeper and see if I can figure this out. I accept there's every chance that this is a user issue - but I'll be darned if I can figure this out :)

Thank you again for your suggestions.

 

[markwill]

By the way, one thing I want to highlight is that ALL disks display this message (except da0). I mention this because, for such a suprising outcome (for me at least), I am willing to entertain the fact that I screwed up and used the Windows boot disk for ada0.

But even if I did do that, I still don't understand why the other disks display this message if I try to boot from them. For example, ada2 and 3 are data disks I used under Windows. I have never gone anywhere near these under FreeNAS. However, if I try to boot them even they say that they are FreeNAS data drives.

I have only ever used a single drive since I installed FreeNAS a few days ago, so no idea why 4 of them would boot with this message.

Really rather confusing.

 

[blueether]

Have you tried to remove the freenas data and the freenas boot disks and then boot windows? I'm wondering if the sata controller/bios is at fault...