Can boot from old USB but not mount, New install USB of any version freezes at post

[Nobody the guy that does]

This is my first time posting on any forum of any kind for anything, so be patient I am a quick learner.

I have an EVGA MB with 8G ram. Model is 132-CK-NF79 with the latest bios of P10. There are 26T of drives installed and all mirrored for total of 13T usable, currently using about 8T. The system was started 2 years ago with older bios, and 9.1 from what I can remember. It was started on 32G Hp 165w flash drive. Has been working fine for all this time. I had updated to 9.3, and then to 9.10, again working fine. I had a couple of bad sectors show up on a few drive over time and was able to replace and resilver each with no issues as the serial number was listed in GUI and also on the drive. Recently the boot mirror showed as one of the devices failing. There are no numbers on the flash drive so I replaced one and started the resilver process. The following day it was still in resilver. (seems kinda long time for 32G), but I am certainly no programming expert. It appears as though the power was interrupted during the resilver as when I came home machine was off.

Upon repowering of machine, it booted and loaded to a point of

[(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): WRITE(10). CDB:2a 00 00 00 06 38 00 00 10 00]
[(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): CAM status: SCSI Status Error]
[(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI status: Check Condition]
[(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI sense: DATA PROTECT asc:27,0 (Write Protected)]
[(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): Error 13, Unretryable error]
[Mounting from zfs:freens-boot/ROOT/9.10.2-U5 failed with error 6]

[Loader Variables:
vfs.root.mountfrom=zfs:freenas-boot/ROOT/9.10.2-U5]

It then finishes the script with info on how to manually enter the info.

So in my several days of searching I have located several things on forums to attempt. The first was to do a clean install and then import the zfs vol.

Tried this with 9.10. I started with install from USB to USB with the 32G HP drive. (ones that were purchased at same time as the ones running machine for last 2 years) It goes through install just fine, then remove installer drive and reboot. Upon reboot it hangs the post screen and a reset or power down is the only way out. If I pull USB with OS then post is good.

Further investigation led me to believe there may have been bios issue. Went in and turned off the 1394, and checked boot priority. Same results.

Tried to load 9.3, same result. Tried to load 9.1, same result. Further searching of forums said use SANDISK, went and bought 4 of those, 8G (as some said anything larger may be an issue) same result. Tried to load 9.10,9.3, and 9.1 from cd, same result. (including the original install disk from 2 years ago.)

Another posted suggestion was to use Gparted and set flag from (paraphrasing here) grub_root to root. I started Gparted and scanned drive and it only shows a single zfs partition with no flags, and no portion used.... for both new install(non working), and old stick(the one that boots)

Put the original USB with OS back in and it does not freeze the machine, it just does not mount.

As a trial, I took the "new" 9.10 installed USB and put in different machine ad it does boot and load system.

So here is where I am,
1) I know the machine can do the job, because it has been doing it for 2 years.
2) I know the system "can" boot from a USB because it still does off the old stick.
3) I know that it does not matter if I install from CD or USB the new installs freeze the computer.
4) I know that all the sticks are fine as far as not freezing during post until the OS is installed on them.
5) I know the "new" install will boot a different machine

What I don't know
1) Why will it boot off old stick and not new
2) Why is it not able to mount the zfs
3) Most importantly..... what's wrong and how do I fix it.

I am usually pretty good at getting to the bottom of things (probably why I have never posted anywhere before), but I am not privy to the programming end of things so I don't know what many of the messages are trying to tell me or what I can do to change them.


Thanks much for anyone's time spent on this, time is after all the only thing we really have. We trade it for money and other things, but it is the ROOT of who we are and what we have, it is very much, APPRECIATED

 

[Nobody the guy that does]

Is there a way to get past trying to mount pool and get machine up with the drive that works, then update to say 11 through GUI and then import the pool? I have tried to start without data drive connected and of course it also says mounting failed with error 6, because there is no pool to mount when disconnected.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Is there a way to get past trying to mount pool and get machine up with the drive that works, then update to say 11 through GUI and then import the pool? I have tried to start without data drive connected and of course it also says mounting failed with error 6, because there is no pool to mount when disconnected.

How long did you wait for it to try and mount? I suggest waiting at least an hour.

Mounting without the disks is pointless because you need them for your data. You could try booting up with 1 drive attached at a time. This would help figure out which drive are giving you problems.

 

[Nobody the guy that does]

First I want to thank you for helping, in today's day it is becoming a more rare thing, I commend you for that.
I waited several hours the first time. It goes into a screen giving me the proper format to manually command the mount, and stays there waiting for me to type a command. I will try today to disconnect all but one, and then see if it will mount them individually. From your suggestion, I am presuming that it is a problem with a data disk as opposed to a boot disk, is this correct?

Update: Tried each drive individually and same result for all. On the hunch that the issue with original stick is corrupt, I installed an IDE drive and installed 9.10 to this drive. As before report says install success. This time on rebooting to IDE, the system came up with fresh install, and I am currently importing the zfs pool.

In the amount of time it took to type last paragraph, pool has imported. I now need to restore the config, and I have the usb original drive in tact as it were (non bootable.) I tried to install the usb, made temp mount point, but the following command [mount -o ro /dev/da0s4 /var/tmp/cfgmount] results in "no such file or directory exists"

I know this is getting off the original thread, but trying to get system back up and running properly. I still would like to know why the USB is crashing system but at this point that is secondary.

Any suggestions on the config recovery?

 

[SweetAndLow]

First I want to thank you for helping, in today's day it is becoming a more rare thing, I commend you for that.
I waited several hours the first time. It goes into a screen giving me the proper format to manually command the mount, and stays there waiting for me to type a command. I will try today to disconnect all but one, and then see if it will mount them individually. From your suggestion, I am presuming that it is a problem with a data disk as opposed to a boot disk, is this correct?

Update: Tried each drive individually and same result for all. On the hunch that the issue with original stick is corrupt, I installed an IDE drive and installed 9.10 to this drive. As before report says install success. This time on rebooting to IDE, the system came up with fresh install, and I am currently importing the zfs pool.

In the amount of time it took to type last paragraph, pool has imported. I now need to restore the config, and I have the usb original drive in tact as it were (non bootable.) I tried to install the usb, made temp mount point, but the following command [mount -o ro /dev/da0s4 /var/tmp/cfgmount] results in "no such file or directory exists"

I know this is getting off the original thread, but trying to get system back up and running properly. I still would like to know why the USB is crashing system but at this point that is secondary.

Any suggestions on the config recovery?

I thought you already replaced the boot device? You keep saying things that don't make sense. Like that freenas gives you the command to do it manually. Freenas never uses the command line and if you do you are probably breaking something.

To do a reinstall it is super simple and should take <10min
1. create a new install usb
2. install to a second usb used for booting
3. upload your config in the gui.
4. done

Never use the cli with freenas it does not work that way.

 

[Nobody the guy that does]

Ok, I guess I am mixing terms a bit. I did in fact do what you describe with your 4 steps above. The result is machine freezes in post.

If I use the original USB to try and start the system, Then "grub" stops with the following on the screen:

[(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): WRITE(10). CDB:2a 00 00 00 06 38 00 00 10 00]
[(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): CAM status: SCSI Status Error]
[(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI status: Check Condition]
[(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI sense: DATA PROTECT asc:27,0 (Write Protected)]
[(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): Error 13, Unretryable error]
[Mounting from zfs:freens-boot/ROOT/9.10.2-U5 failed with error 6]

[Loader Variables:
vfs.root.mountfrom=zfs:freenas-boot/ROOT/9.10.2-U5]

This is followed by a description of what is needed to mount the zfs in other words the information in the variables listed just above and the proper formatting of the information to match vfs.root.mountfrom=zfs:freenas-boot/ROOT/9.10.2-U5

So the issue is: the original boot usb, starts grub, and goes as far as trying to mount zfs and stalls.

Any new install to any usb freezes the machine in post screen.

The only way I was able to get it up and working to this point is to install to an IDE drive, as ALL new installation attempts to USB freeze the machine in post screen.

So to comment to your I thought you already replaced the boot device, I have tried many times, but new install to any usb freezes machine in post.

After that I attempted to boot from original and it again starts grub, and stalls at mount zfs.

I realize that upload config is in the GUI, I now need to figure out how to get it off the old boot usb, or if there is some location in the pool where it may be stored.

I apologize for any confusion I may be causing, I know what I am trying to communicate, I just am not using the right terminology, (grub vs freenas) for example and I know this is critical. Ask me about cars or houses and I got it, computer ease is obviously not my specialty.

Thanks Much!

 

[Stux]

If your system dataset was saved to your data pool, and it should be, then the config is backed up in there.

I'm not sure of the steps required to pull it out.

Doesn't help you yet, but there is a Feature Request to be able to restore the config from the system dataset... and it was implemented 7 days ago...

https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/24173

So, it'll probably be in FreeNAS 11.1 ;)

Wonder if its in the nightlies?

 

[Nobody the guy that does]

Hey thanks a bunch for this. I have started to make some changes in current config to get what I need from it for now. I am pretty sure that if this becomes available and I run it, it will just overwrite what I am doing and restore to original config.