SOLVED BIOS won't recognize the SSD as a bootable device

[Alex762]

Hi guys, I'm new here and I just installed TrueNAS on an old PC to use it as a personal storage.

I've carefully followed the tutorial on how to install TrueNAS from the official YT channel, but after the installation now I am completely stuck, the machine won't recognize any boot device because for some reason my BIOS only reads the HDD as bootable devices and not the SSD where TrueNAS OS is installed.

The SSD is brand new and works properly, I installed everything without any issues and if I go to the Advanced options the SSD is listed and recognized, but I can't see it in the boot options. You got any idea on what is happening here? Thank you!

 

[Ericloewe]

To get useful answers, you’ll need to tell us what motherboard and SSD you’re using.

 

[Alex762]

To get useful answers, you’ll need to tell us what motherboard and SSD you’re using.

The SSD is a brand new 120 GB Kingston A400.
The PC I'm using is an Acer Veriton X2611G (i3-3240, 8GB RAM upgrade): I'm not entirely sure on the exact model of the mobo since it's not listed anywhere in the specs, but according to what I've found it should be an Acer DTX LGA1155 H61H2-AD SFF DB.VF611.001. Hope it might help...

 

[Ericloewe]

So, SATA SSD on a generic-ish OEM motherboard. That narrows things down.
I see two main possibilities:

1. Typical setup menu nonsense and buggy behavior. Not much in the way of advice I can provide there, other than "fiddle around a bit and try different combinations of settings".
2. Maybe the firmware is customized to only boot from certain SATA ports. It's a not-unusual OEM thing to do.

 

[Alex762]

I have been trying for two hours switching the drives between all SATA ports and search for all options in the BIOS, and now for some reason it doesn't even detect the two hard drives as a boot device... This is very weird, I've never seen such behavior before so I literally have no idea what is happening

 

[Ericloewe]

If you've been fiddling around for a while, it may be worth it to wipe the system firmware settings and start over with the defaults.

 

[Alex762]

I've been giving it another try and I noticed that when I plug the USB with the TrueNAS iso it recognize it as "UEFI: flash" despite that machine only works with BIOS... I'm still more confused

 

[Davvo]

You should check that all your sata ports are active. If you have a nvme plugged some might not be.
Check cables of the SSD, maybe do a factory reset of BIOS.
Try plugging only the SSD and the USB.

 

[Alex762]

Okay guys thank you so much for your help, after some time I've actually managed to solve the issue.
I tried reinstalling TrueNAS OS but this time I choose "Boot via UEFI" instead of "Boot via BIOS" and now it works! At first I have choose to boot via BIOS because I thought the motherboard was too old to support UEFI, but apparently I was wrong...

 

[Davvo]

It's always a roulette. It happened to me as well, don't feel bad.

 

[Ericloewe]

Okay guys thank you so much for your help, after some time I've actually managed to solve the issue.
I tried reinstalling TrueNAS OS but this time I choose "Boot via UEFI" instead of "Boot via BIOS" and now it works! At first I have choose to boot via BIOS because I thought the motherboard was too old to support UEFI, but apparently I was wrong...

Just barely, UEFI became standard in that generation.