Dell PowerEdge R520 USB boot issues

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Dpynn

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First thank you to all the contributors here. I know you do not get paid to develop or support the software and you have my utmost respect and gratitude. This has been beaten to death already but once again there are issues with Dell servers booting FreeNAS to a USB stick. I wanted to create some awareness of the issues for your readers and ask for some assistance.

  • My server is a Dell R520 (Xeon 6 core CPU and 16GB RAM)
  • BIOS rev 1.4.6
  • FreeNAS versions tried from 8.02 to 8.3.2.alpha r13 (all 64Bit) Used install from DVD and tried extracting image using the Win32 Diskmanager tool
  • Multiple USB sticks tried 8GB
  • Used both the internal USB slot and external slots
  • Serial number of server: 8PB78X1

Also, I need to mention that we were able to get Ubuntu to boot from the USB stick no problems at all..

Some background: We previously used Dell R310's for our FreeNAS systems. There have been no issues booting to USB sticks. The only caveat is that in the BIOS we must select USB Emulation to be set to hard drive for a successful boot. The issue with the newer R520's is that there is no option in its BIOS to do this. So, now the installation seems to go fine however we are stuck at the "Boot: F1" screen and FreeNAS stops there. It seems evident that Dell has no plans to address this, so I was hoping someone here may have had a similar experience with an R520 server and had found a way to overcome this.

I hate to give up one of the hot plug slots to install the FreeNAS system, but alas if that is the only option I will have to do it. Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? Again, if no solution is likely, I would advise your readers to avoid buying the Dell R520 servers if they plan on booting FreeNAS from a USB stick.

Thank you all

D Pynn
 

cyberjock

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It sounds like you have been pretty thorough with your testing of FreeNAS, and I don't have any advice except to check for any BIOS updates that may be available for your machine. Some people have found that other BIOS settings they changed affected the bootability of FreeBSD/FreeNAS(FreeBSD is not linux if you don't know already). So some people have found that resetting BIOS to defaults and only changing the boot device has helped some people. If that works then try changing 1 or 2 settings at a time in the BIOS until the system stops booting to find the culprit. Surely using all defaults isn't always the best choices for your setup. Aside from that, I don't think there's much else you can do :(

Just remember, if you get a 120GB SSD or something any extra space will NOT be available to use, at all. So don't go overboard thinking you'll use the extra space for something else.
 

Dpynn

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Cyberjock... Thanks for taking the time to reply. To add to this thread I want to inform all that using Freenas 7.3 does boot using the internal USB port on the R520. I guess the failure for FreeNAS 8x to boot from the same USB thumbdrive is related to the changes on the FreeBSD side.

Again, thanks. I will update this thread with any new information I find that may be helpful to others.
 

cyberjock

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Weird. Whatever the reason, FreeNAS 7 isn't from the same codebase as FreeNAS 8, so something most likely made it incompatible.
 

xt4c

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I would concur with cyberjock. i recently installed a freenas system on an old dell and had boot issues: this was solved by updating the bios. So check for a more recent bios if you're having issues.
 

Dpynn

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Thanks guys. The release notes for the latest BIOS update for this server says:

System: Dell PowerEdge R520
Version: 1.5.0
Release Date: 12/18/2012

* Allows Memory 2X Refresh operation independent of temperature.
This option is accessible through the System Profile Settings menu under the BIOS setup.​

It doesnt seem it is related to the issue at hand but I guess it wouldnt hurt to try. Perhaps also trying the oldest BIOS version may help as well. I will keep you posted.
 

Dpynn

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Oct 5, 2012
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Thanks again everyone. Unfortunately there was no way to get this to work so we had to move to a different open source solution. Again, thanks to you all for the help.
 

Dpynn

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Hi webstyler, unfortunately after extensive testing and reconfiguring we could not get this to work on the Dell R520 systems. We had to move over to nas4free. No reflection on the folks here, they are great but it looks like a problem between the server hardware and BSD its self.

I wish I had better news

Thanks
 

webstyler

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May 16, 2012
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So, we have speak with DELL support, 6 hours on phone.. below the conclusion

with R520 there isn't way to start Freenas with usb, we have try with 4 different usb firm
we have idrac enterprise but freenas don't start if installed on vFlash card partition..

the only way to work with this server is to install on HD
but, pay attention, work only if you disable uefi boot

so, put 1 HD (or 2 if need raid) in your R520
insert CD and install on new HD
you see a lot of hardware error, ignored this.. after 4/5 minutes the installation go on
after installation reboot, change boot from uefi boot to bios boot
if you have raid controller remember to give to new hd the boot priority
change boot order and put hardisk as firt option
reboot

this work fine

about issue on USB/SD card DELL that is a Freebsd issue compatibility
 
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