Can't Install FreeNAS: Reboots in the middle of setup

[HelloWill]

BACKGROUND
We have a VMWare hypervisor that had 2 iSCSI connections to a FreeNAS storage server. These connections stopped working, and upon further investigation we find the flash drive containing the FreeNAS boot / config is un-readable. We have no backup of this configuration. We were going to install FreeNAS onto a flash drive, import the volume and re-setup the iSCSI connections.


BEHAVIOR WE'RE EXPERIENCING
We can't get FreeNAS to install. The setup starts, but the server stops and reboots at the first step (Installing base OS)


STEPS TAKEN

1. We burned FreeNAS version 9.10 to a DVD using the ISO
2. Inserted new USB flash drive into the server
3. In the bios, we can see the flash drive (USB 3)
4. We ran the setup from the DVD, selected the flash drive as the install destination and it gets to part 1 and freezes and eventually reboots. If we try to boot from the flash drive, it goes to a black screen.
5. If we retry the installation again, it does the exact same thing.
6. I tried with the 9.10 and 11.2 installer with the same results.
7. We've tried all the USB ports on the server, with 2 different flash drives

TROUBLESHOOTING STEPS TAKEN

• Used different flash drive (same result)
• Tried USB 2 & USB 3 flash drives (same result)
• Tried all 4 USB ports on the system
• Tried different FreeNAS boot media

Our Setup
Hardware

• Supermicro Chassis (MB x7DB8 with BIOS 2.1)
• 16x SATA drives
• LSI HBA
• Both USB2 and USB3 flash drives

Software

• Unknown version of Freenas installed prior

 

[Heracles]

Hey Will,

As a first step, I would try to boot with a different OS. Make yourself a Linux or BSD boot drive and try to boot that system using any other operating system.

Once you managed to boot, do a few rounds of memtest to be sure your RAM is good.

The first step you are talking about is doing the install on the target drive. Can you unplug your data drives and try to install on a spare drive, just to install on something else than a USB device ? Your USB controller may be the problem.

Hope these debug steps will give you some ideas / clues about your situation...

 

[HelloWill]

I was able to troubleshoot the issue further by installing a SATA SSD. When using that as the install destination, it worked fine. Looks like my problem is related to the USB ports (or USB controller).

 

[NASbox]

I was able to troubleshoot the issue further by installing a SATA SSD. When using that as the install destination, it worked fine. Looks like my problem is related to the USB ports (or USB controller).

How about the USB Drive? Unless you absolutely can't use an SSD for boot, I would recommend you stay as far away from USB as possible. The boot has been switched from UFS to ZFS, and ZFS on USB can be problematical. At very least make sure you have a very high quality USB drive.... but much better would be an SSD. You don't need anything high performance, and it is very likely over the life of the SSD you will spend more money replacing USB sticks.