Dell PowerEdge R720 Boot Problem

[Dzerc]

Hello,

I have a Dell PowerEdge R720 server I am trying to install free Nas on. I have disabled the Raid controller.
I have installed to a USB stick to the front USB ports using the live CD on Version 9.2.1.5

I have seen other users on the Dell R710 having to set USB emulation to HD but I cannot find this setting anywhere in the Bios. I have updated the BIOS to Version 2.2.2

when I try to boot from USB i get the following
F1 FreeBSD
F2 FreeBSD
F5 Drive0

F6 PXE

It then just hangs here I have left it for hours with no boot.

Thank you

 

[Ericloewe]

Have you tried pressing F1 or F2...? Or setting the desired device as the first boot device?

 

[Dzerc]

I have tried going into the BIOS by pressing F2 and then I have changed the USB to be the first boot device. and this makes no difference.
I cannot find anywhere to change the USB emulation to HD as other people have mentioned.

I have managed to install and boot up free nas by installing it onto a internal HDD of the server and it boots up fine now but still cannot get it to boot up fully from the USB stick it just hangs as I described in my first post.

Thanks

 

[Dzerc]

I still havn't been able to solve this. I can boot an acronis bootable USB stick fine just the freeNas usb stick that doesn't want to boot.
I can install freenas to a internal HDD fine and it boots from that.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[J0eS4y]

Dzerc, the 720's won't boot from front/back usb devices. You'll have to purchase the internal SD readers with a $6 1GB stick. I'm not sure why freenas won't boot on the 720 (because the T410 and T310 boot perfectly). Sorry, I know this wasn't the answer you were looking for.

 

[Ekasit]

Somehow the 720 BIOS detects FreeNAS USB stick as the first floppy drive. So, the BTX boot loader on the USB stick won't boot. I used grub2 on CDROM to boot into grub command. After that I mapped drive from (hd0) to (fd0) and selected boot device to (fd0). It can continue booting from the USB stick into FreeNAS. I guess replacing the boot loader on USB stick with grub2 might help. I haven't tried it yet.

 

[Renato Ornelas]

Maybe this the same problem I had with R520, see if this topic solves your issue:

http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/howto-install-freenas-on-dell-r520.23390/

 

[Ekasit]

Renato,

I confirm that with the new MBR my R720 can boot now. Would you mind to share what was changed in the new MBR?

Thanks

 

[Renato Ornelas]

Ekasit,

I just recreated with the same sizes. We I recreated the drive changed the head/cylinder count. I think this causes the server to recognize as an HD.


This is the original MBR:

16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 297 cylinders, total 299856 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x90909090

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
img-fudido.img1 * 63 1930319 965128+ a5 FreeBSD
img-fudido.img2 1930383 3860639 965128+ a5 FreeBSD
img-fudido.img3 3860640 3863663 1512 a5 FreeBSD
img-fudido.img4 3863664 3904991 20664 a5 FreeB


This is the new:

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 18 cylinders, total 299856 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x90909090

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
img-ok.img1 * 63 1930319 965128+ a5 FreeBSD
img-ok.img2 1930383 3860639 965128+ a5 FreeBSD
img-ok.img3 3860640 3863663 1512 a5 FreeBSD
img-ok.img4 3863664 3904991 20664 a5 FreeBSD

 

[ReputableSquid]

Hi All,

I have an interesting variant on this problem. My R720 (Firmware / BIOS version unknown) loaded FreeNAS 9.1.0 just fine and has been working great for over a year.

Recently, the system suffered a major hardware fault and Dell replaced the system board, power supplies and hard drive back plane.

When trying to boot the previously working USB drive, the system exhibits the same behavior detailed above and hangs on the boot loader.

I tried the MBR replacement, but that failed to load anything at all.

Has anyone determined what the problem is here and how to resolve it?

Thanks,
--Todd