Error booting FreeNAS 9.3

[TwoDuo91]

Scenario:
I want to install (latest) FreeNAS 9.3 Release onto a 16GB USB Stick from another USB Stick (8GB) created from iso file. The install stick is mounted as da0, the target stick as da1 while installing (depending which usb port i think).
The Installation works fine without error. I shutdown the machine and remove the install media.

Now when i start the machine the booting fails.
The error message is: "panic: mountroot: unable to (re-)mount root".
So it only boots when the install stick is connected too.

Up to Version 9.2.1.9 i didnt have that kind of error and i always installed it that way.

The checksum of the iso file is correct.

What am i doing wrong here?

Thanks.

 

[joeschmuck]

Is there a reason you don't just create the 9.3 using the ISO on the 16GB drive and then just restore your backed up configuration file to it? Hopefully you did make a backup configuration file form 9.2.1.x.

 

[TwoDuo91]

Why should i put the iso directly on the 16GB stick? Whats the target to install then? Maybe i missed someting new regarding the installation process.
I made a backup of the settings ; the 9.2 stick is unchanged as i used another free stick to test 9.3

 

[joeschmuck]

You misunderstood me, do a fresh install on to the 16GB USB drive utilizing the ISO image.

 

[TwoDuo91]

Do you mean with a CD/optical drive? I dont have one connected to it. How should i boot the iso then? Doesnt it work from stick to stick? Isnt the iso just for installing?

 

[joeschmuck]

I can't do it for you. If you can boot the ISO and install to the flash drive of your choice, I'd say that is good. There is no USB images right now nor do I know if one will be created.

 

[cyberjock]

One will never be created because the FreeNAS installer actually uses the whole disk, so its custom for your boot media.

 

[Ericloewe]

Several options for booting the ISO:

Burn it and use an external optical drive.
Copy it to a second USB drive.
Use grub/your favorite bootloader to load it from a large(ish) USB disk where you keep several ISOs.
Use IPMI.

Obviously, the last one is the easiest one that does not require you to leave your seat (assuming IPMI is available).

 

[Glorious1]

Several options for booting the ISO:
Use IPMI.

Obviously, the last one is the easiest one that does not require you to leave your seat (assuming IPMI is available).

OK, this could solve my problem in another thread. Could I trouble you to outline the process for using IPMI to install FreeNAS with an iso file on the client machine? That does sound a lot easier than going through all the USB stuff. For some reason I can't get my motherboard to show more than one USB stick at the same time in the Boot menu or the FreeNAS install menu. (That is, if I boot from one USB into the installer, it won't show the target USB stick)

I did see the "Virtual Media" menu in IPMI, but gave up on it because it referred to using a Windows share. But now I realize I can do a Windows share on my Mac. Just not sure how that virtual media stuff works. The IPMI manual is very little help.

 

[Glorious1]

I figured out how to boot with the remote installer iso through IPMI/KVM. But it's no good, I have the same problem. In order to see the installer as a boot option I have to choose "Aten CDROM" (which represents the installer iso) as the 1st option in the BIOS menu Boot > USB Device BBS Priorities. So it's seen as a USB device. Then no other USB device shows up, either in the regular boot menu and most problematically not in the FreeNAS installer menu where you choose the target for the installation.

This is not making sense.

 

[Glorious1]

This motherboard is kind of wonky the way it won't give you options of multiple USB devices to boot from. But I finally got it to work by plugging both USB sticks into USB2 ports. The boot menu still will only show one of them (as selected in BIOS > Boot > USB Device BBS Priorities). But this way the FreeNAS installer does give the other stick as a target option. What a weird system.

Then of course I have to enable USB3 in FreeNAS with the Tunable xhci_load=YES before moving the OS stick to the internal USB3 port and rebooting. The good news is it works.