Disks Missing

[Neil]

Just starting out with FreeNAS, looks great. Downloaded the ISO and installed it on an old XP PC. It fires up, I can see it from another machine but no disk drives are listed. View disks says "No entry has been found". The disk that is in the machine is an 80gb and if I run camcontrol devlist I can see the disk drive listed.
My only thought is that I need to create a separate partition that is divorced from the operating system. Is that the case? Will it then show up in the View Disks?

 

[cyberjock]

No. If you read the manual the disk that you install FreeNAS to cannot be used to store data. This is why the manual recommends you install to a USB stick.

You may want to stop and read the manual before going further or you're going to ask a whole lot more questions that are all covered in the manual. :)

 

[Knowltey]

The disk is missing because you already used it to install FreeNAS to. The FreeNAS installation requires it's own disk. Generally an 8GB or larger USB Flash Drive is suitable for this unless you have like an 8GB hard drive lying around or some other small hard drive that you don't care to waste a ton of space on.

 

[Neil]

Thanks for that. I am reading the manual as fast as I can but didn't come across the paragraph where it recommended setting up an 8gb partition! I want to keep the unit all in one piece so a flash drive is not appropriate. My plan therefore is to partition the disk as you suggest with maybe 10gb for FreeNAS and 70gb for data. I'm guessing the easiest way is to boot into a Linux O/s and partition using parted or something like that, then re-install FreeNAS on the 10gb partition. Is that possible? On reading your post again it suggests that FreeNAS needs a complete disk all to itself, will partitioning work? Sorry, I'm still trying to find the simple 'get started' bit of the manual, the one I'm looking at goes straight into details about RAIDS and stuff which I don't need.

 

[Neil]

... oh, and thanks to Cyberjock, your guide is the thing I've been looking for!

 

[cyberjock]

Thanks for that. I am reading the manual as fast as I can but didn't come across the paragraph where it recommended setting up an 8gb partition! I want to keep the unit all in one piece so a flash drive is not appropriate. My plan therefore is to partition the disk as you suggest with maybe 10gb for FreeNAS and 70gb for data. I'm guessing the easiest way is to boot into a Linux O/s and partition using parted or something like that, then re-install FreeNAS on the 10gb partition. Is that possible? On reading your post again it suggests that FreeNAS needs a complete disk all to itself, will partitioning work? Sorry, I'm still trying to find the simple 'get started' bit of the manual, the one I'm looking at goes straight into details about RAIDS and stuff which I don't need.

No. Notice what I said...

No. If you read the manual the disk that you install FreeNAS to cannot be used to store data. This is why the manual recommends you install to a USB stick.

I didn't mistype that. It really is the WHOLE disk. Not a partition or a slice. The WHOLE disk. Here's a hint: If the manual doesn't tell you how to do something with FreeNAS, you probably aren't supposed to be doing that for some reason.

 

[Neil]

Thanks Cyberjock, that's saved me some time. OK, I have some small disks somewhere, I'll dig one out and use that.

 

[Knowltey]

Thanks Cyberjock, that's saved me some time. OK, I have some small disks somewhere, I'll dig one out and use that.

No, FreeNAS needs to be installed to a USB flash drive, it is not intended or designed to be installed to a hard disk.

 

[Neil]

Wow, that's weird. I can live with it though (I think). So I've now got a disk to format. The manual talks about several formats, which is best? Is it OK to do it with NTFS or should I use a Linux variant. I want it to be fairly quick so I don't want to make any silly errors now. I am reading the manual!

Thanks,
Neil

 

[gpsguy]

The disks should blank, ie not formatted


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