Hi all,
I have a FreeNAS system that has been rock solid for some years (based on HP Microserver N54L). The boot device is a Kingston USB stick, and it was worked and rebooted flawlessly for years.
Recently I ran out of internal space for hard drives, and as a stop-gap measure before I upgrade the platform, I attached a WD USB 8TB hard drive. This works fine in FreeNAS - however it is causing issues with the boot process.
When I try to boot from the Kingston USB stick with the WD drive attached, the FreeNAS BTX boot loader begins to load, and then stops with an error that says, "panic free guard1 fail". The only option I am given is to press any key to reboot.
I've checked the BIOS settings, changed the boot order and ensured that I am booting only from the USB stick - however this makes no difference. The only way I can get the server to boot is to physically disconnect the WD USB drive, wait for the boot loader to complete and the kernel to start loading and then I can plug the WD drive back in. The boot completes flawlessly and I can use the system as normal.
The WD drive was never used for any purpose other than FreeNAS, and I put ZFS on it using FreeNAS. I didn't zero the drive first however - should I have?
The question is - why is the FreeNAS boot loader upset by the presence of this drive, and can I do something to fix it? It's really inconvenient to have to physically be at the system to unplug and plug in a drive to get it to boot. I know that my USB disk setup is far from ideal and in time I will get that fixed - however for now budget constraints mean it's the best I can do - and it strikes me this is an issue that it should be possible to workaround or resolve.
Does anyone know how to fix this? Can I zero out the boot sector or something on the WD drive to prevent the FreeNAS boot loader from getting upset?
Any and all help appreciated!
James
I have a FreeNAS system that has been rock solid for some years (based on HP Microserver N54L). The boot device is a Kingston USB stick, and it was worked and rebooted flawlessly for years.
Recently I ran out of internal space for hard drives, and as a stop-gap measure before I upgrade the platform, I attached a WD USB 8TB hard drive. This works fine in FreeNAS - however it is causing issues with the boot process.
When I try to boot from the Kingston USB stick with the WD drive attached, the FreeNAS BTX boot loader begins to load, and then stops with an error that says, "panic free guard1 fail". The only option I am given is to press any key to reboot.
I've checked the BIOS settings, changed the boot order and ensured that I am booting only from the USB stick - however this makes no difference. The only way I can get the server to boot is to physically disconnect the WD USB drive, wait for the boot loader to complete and the kernel to start loading and then I can plug the WD drive back in. The boot completes flawlessly and I can use the system as normal.
The WD drive was never used for any purpose other than FreeNAS, and I put ZFS on it using FreeNAS. I didn't zero the drive first however - should I have?
The question is - why is the FreeNAS boot loader upset by the presence of this drive, and can I do something to fix it? It's really inconvenient to have to physically be at the system to unplug and plug in a drive to get it to boot. I know that my USB disk setup is far from ideal and in time I will get that fixed - however for now budget constraints mean it's the best I can do - and it strikes me this is an issue that it should be possible to workaround or resolve.
Does anyone know how to fix this? Can I zero out the boot sector or something on the WD drive to prevent the FreeNAS boot loader from getting upset?
Any and all help appreciated!
James