SOLVED FreeNAS 11 Fresh Install Won't Boot

[butterwrath]

Hey guys,

I tried to install FreeNAS 11 today from 9.10. Booted fine the first time, but won't reboot/boot after shutdown. Every time I try to boot, I get stuck on the Supermicro screen and the screen displaying:

Initializing Intel (R) Boot Agent GE v1.4.04
PXE 2.1 Build 091 (WFM 2.0)

It just keeps on rebooting.

More about my system:

• Intel Xeon E3-1230
• SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCL-F-O
• Crucial 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC
• Boot: 2x SanDisk Cruzer Blade CZ50 16GB

I haven't changed anything during the first boot. I run the wizard to set the time zone, import my ZFS, and restart. No other changes were made, but it won't reboot/boot. Anyone have any ideas why this is happening? Thanks!

 

[Ericloewe]

Seems like a hardware/firmware issue. Update the BIOS, etc.

 

[DrKK]

Seems like a hardware/firmware issue. Update the BIOS, etc.

I swear this is the third or fourth time someone with an X9 family motherboard said they had problems booting.

Am I imagining this?

Do we know what the cause is, specifically?

 

[Ericloewe]

In this case, it sounds like the system firmware is having trouble getting past the early boot stages - I've just noticed the reference to PXE, so try disabling network booting in the setup menu.

More generally, any boot options not in use should be disabled.

 

[butterwrath]

Thanks for your replies, guys.

I was going to try and update the BIOS, but it was already running the latest version. I did something desperate: I booted using the disc and selected the "upgrade" option in order to boot it. After the "upgrade" completed, it was able to boot normally. But still had the same problem if I restarted. I decided to try to use that as my booting method in the meantime and proceeded to setting up the NAS. I had to restart because my plugging list said "No entry found," and dreaded the workaround, but the damn thing booted without issue... So yeah. It appears to be working now.

I'll disable the network boot as when I get home as a safety measure. Thanks again!

 

[butterwrath]

Hey guys, back with an update.

Still having the same issue. The apartment complex had a power outage today morning. Got stuck in boot loop until I got home. Tried playing with BIOS, and disabled basically everything and extraneous features in BIOS, but nothing seems to work. I went back to the forum, and found a thread about someone upgrading to 9.10 having a boot loop issue, but solved the issue after installing in a new boot environment. Thoughts? It's pretty ridiculous having to put in the install disk and "upgrade" in order to boot my NAS every time...

 

[Stux]

Install from installer. Choose upgrade. Preserve settings, then tell it to format the boot disk. This will preserve your config, but will erase all previous boot environments.

I think there is a bug where it corrupts/erases the boot sectors on the first reboot after install (when it re-writes the grub stuff...)

I wonder if it only affects those booting via BIOS and not UEFI?

Perhaps its related to this? https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/24139

 

[butterwrath]

Thanks for the input. That's actually what I've been doing:

• Boot with installer disk --> upgrade --> format boot disk.

Pretty ridiculous work around every time I needed to reboot the damn thing...

I haven't tried installing in new boot environment yet; someone from another thread in 9.20 who was experiencing boot loops said installing new boot environment fixed the issue, although I don't understand how it would. I backed up my config, so I can probably play around with it a little more.

I haven't tried UEFI yet mainly because I never tried it.

Hm... the bug you posted mentions the bug to be fixed in the nighties. Perhaps I should give that a shot?

 

[butterwrath]

I wonder if it only affects those booting via BIOS and not UEFI?

I just tried the upgrade option with UEFI, set the motherboard to boot UEFI only. Solved the problem. Updated to U2, restarted a couple times. No issues.

Thanks for all the help!

 

[pschatz100]

Hey guys,

I tried to install FreeNAS 11 today from 9.10. Booted fine the first time, but won't reboot/boot after shutdown. Every time I try to boot, I get stuck on the Supermicro screen and the screen displaying:

Initializing Intel (R) Boot Agent GE v1.4.04
PXE 2.1 Build 091 (WFM 2.0)

It just keeps on rebooting.

More about my system:

• Intel Xeon E3-1230
• SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCL-F-O
• Crucial 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC
• Boot: 2x SanDisk Cruzer Blade CZ50 16GB

I haven't changed anything during the first boot. I run the wizard to set the time zone, import my ZFS, and restart. No other changes were made, but it won't reboot/boot. Anyone have any ideas why this is happening? Thanks!

The error message is caused by the motherboard's inability to find a local boot device, so it is trying to find a network boot resource. I had this same thing happen to me on a Supermicro X9SCM-F after a fresh install of FreeNAS 11.0u2.

For some reason, the motherboard is being fussy about whether the boot type is UEFI or BIOS for certain devices. I don't know if it is a hardware issue, a timing issue or something about the way the boot environment is being written, but on my motherboard I can boot from UEFI when the device is a flash drive, but I have to use BIOS boot (Supermicro calls it LEGACY) when booting from an SSD.

This means I have to choose the right option when creating the boot device. With the SSD I am currently using as a boot device, the system would not boot when it was set up for UEFI, but all was good when it was set up for BIOS boot.

 

[Ericloewe]

For some reason, the motherboard is being fussy about whether the boot type is UEFI or BIOS for certain devices. I don't know if it is a hardware issue, a timing issue or something about the way the boot environment is being written, but on my motherboard I can boot from UEFI when the device is a flash drive, but I have to use BIOS boot (Supermicro calls it LEGACY) when booting from an SSD.

The reason has three letters: AMI. American Megatrends Incorporated.

They're, by far, the authors of the most poorly-written software that runs on any of my systems. Their BIOSes suffer from insane and unbelievable bugs even in basic functionality like overriding the boot device for the current session.

 

[John_G]

I have the same bug, but my mobo (X8DT6) doesn't support UEFI. So I'm stuck a bit, can't boot FreeNAS anyway. Will try to look for solution.

 

[pschatz100]

The installer gives you a choice between creating a UEFI boot device or a BIOS boot device. Your solution is to select the BIOS option.

 

[John_G]

The installer gives you a choice between creating a UEFI boot device or a BIOS boot device. Your solution is to select the BIOS option.

Yeah, I'm choosing "BIOS" option. But seems like server doesn't consider my USB-drive as boot device anymore. I mean boot-block problems or something else. Though it's still in boot devices list. I will try to install ESXi just to make sure, that this isn't problem of USB drive.

 

[John_G]

After doing some research I found out, that after clean install 11 U2 for some reason my usb flash looses all the partitions after second reboot. I've installed FreeNAS, booted it for a first time, configured network, entered web-interface, changed some settings (default nameserver, an so on, even no zvol configuring). I've tried to enter "services" page, but it didn't load, so I've decided to reboot. And that's all. BIOS tells me now - "no bootable device is found". I've inserted usb flash, where FreeNAS OS should be into windows pc and it shows that there is no partitions on a usb flash.

 

[wblock]

The flash drive will have GPT partitions, which might not be visible depending on the release of Windows. There is a fake "protective MBR" that will show only one partition for the whole drive or the first 2TB of larger drives. This is intentionally fake, to allow BIOS-only systems to boot from GPT-partitioned drives. Solution: don't trust Windows, use something that understands GPT. I recommend gpart(8) on FreeNAS or FreeBSD or mfsBSD.

 

[John_G]

Thanks wblock. Looks like Ericloewe is right about AMI BIOS. And (or) there's some misunderstanding between X8DT6 and LSI 9211-8i. When I attach all of the 16 drives to backplane, server can't boot from USB. If I detach drives, FreeNAS boots lika a charm even FreeNAS 11U2. So it's not related to FreeNAS bugs, I was wrong.

I've updated LSI firmware from P14 to P20 (latest version on broadcom site), in couple of hours I will take a look on effect. More investigations will come - flash LSI to IT mode without mptsas2.rom, it can be a solution in theory if P20 IR-mode alone won't be enough. Anyway I can boot FreeNAS without drives and then attach them on a go. But in this case if problem will not be solved, reboot will be strictly unlikeable.

 

[pschatz100]

Did you try using another flash drive as your boot device? Weird things happen when they start to fail.

 

[John_G]

Did you try using another flash drive as your boot device? Weird things happen when they start to fail.

Yes, I did that. I used 3 different flash drives.

 

[John_G]

Reflashed LSI 9211-8i to IT mode without mpt (not seen in BIOS anymore). Now everything is fine, server boots from USB flash. Thanks.