SOLVED Can't replace USB boot device

[Glorious1]

I got a message that one of my volumes was degraded. Turned out to be the mirrored USB boot volume. One was not working. Weird thing is, it was physically missing - I couldn't find it. I thought I had it on the USB port on the motherboard, but it wasn't anywhere. Evaporated.

I shut down, took out the USB drive; indeed it couldn't boot.
Shut down, put it back in along with a new one (exact same model), it boots (after I fought with IPMI and BIOS for a while)
Tried to replace the bad drive, but the dialog says please wait, nothing happens. Eventually the dialog disappears but the drive is not replaced.

Any idea why?

 

[dlavigne]

That screen is for replacing storage disks (not the boot device).

Instead, reinstall the same version to the new boot device and restore your saved configuration.

 

[Glorious1]

Thanks for the reply, but I'm confused. I got to that screen through System > Boot > Status, and it says Boot Status at the top. How could that be for storage disks?

How do I remove the missing device from the mirror, and add the new one? If I click the Detach button at the bottom instead of Replace, I get this error:

Request Method: POST

Request URL: https://192.168.0.102/system/bootenv/pool/detach/1037103066295895683/

Software Version: FreeNAS-11.1-U4 (89e3d93bc)

Exception Type: ClientException

Exception Value:
[EINVAL] Failed to find vdev for 1037103066295895683

Exception Location: /usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/middlewared/client/client.py in call, line 421

Server time: Tue, 14 Aug 2018 06:13:33 -0600

 

[dlavigne]

My bad (need more coffee...)

I'd still recommend backing up the config, doing a fresh install to the new boot mirror, and restoring the config.

 

[Glorious1]

OK, I'll give that a shot. Would you expect that would automatically delete the missing device and recreate the mirror with the new device? That would be surprising.

 

[dlavigne]

During the install you can choose to install to a mirror. I've found that the replacing using the UI tends to be fragile.

 

[Glorious1]

Thanks dlavigne, finally got it going that way. Took about 3 hours because I was trying to use the virtual CD through IPMI, it kept getting hung up during boot, also I learned that the front panel USB ports on my server don't work for this sort of thing. It sure would have been a lot easier if I could have just replaced the USB flash drive!