FreeNAS 11 installation trouble

[hummer5]

Hi all,

I have been dealing with FreeNAS 11 installation misery.
I had 9.3 installed. But then i found out that 11.0 is available.
I got the v 11 from the website, burnt it on the dvd and also got one copy on usb. So far i have tried 6 different usb drives including the original one ( My fault/ I know- shouldn't have done that) but this thing is not working. Two of the installation went through all the way without any error. Then i reboot the system ( removed installation media) and all i get is a small blinking _ at the top left with a blank screen.

This has 12 tb NAS hdd installed
16 gb ram.
Motherboard is not showing any major issues.

I have used diskpart utility in windows to make sure none of the usb drives ( which are 16gb and 8gb varieties) have any partition but still no go.

Please advise
and thanks for taking time to read and assisting me with this problem.

 

[m0nkey_]

Did you attempt to go from 9.3 straight to 11?

You should step through the versions to upgrade to the latest. Since you were on 9.3, your path would be 9.3 > 9.10.2 > 11.

 

[hummer5]

Thanks for replying.
Does this matter though if I am installing the FreeNAS on a new usb with no prior version installed on it?

 

[m0nkey_]

Thanks for replying.
Does this matter though if I am installing the FreeNAS on a new usb with no prior version installed on it?

No, if it's a new install, you can go straight to 11. Then simply restore your config.

 

[hummer5]

That's exactly what I'm having hard time with. I have used six different USB sticks and have tried to install it through DVD as well as USB but failed most of the times. Two times went through full installation but when I rebooted the system it is just showing a blinking _

Already confirmed that it is booting through that usb

 

[gpsguy]

Please provide detailed hardware information per the forum rules at the top of the page.

 

[SweetAndLow]

hardware specs? And did you select the correct boot device in the bios?

 

[hummer5]

Sorry my bad

Specs as follows:

Asus M4A78T-E amd motherboard
Quad core am3 processor
Ram: 1600 DDR3 8 gb ram
LSI LOGIC SAS3801E-R 8CHANNEL PCI EXPRESS SATA-300 / SAS RAID CONTROLLER CARD
6x2 TB WD red NAS drive

I did pick the correct boot device in the bios.

 

[SweetAndLow]

1. I doubt your motherboard is supported. Lots of random gaming stuff about it. Especially the Atheros nic that probably will not work.
2. Your SAS3801E-R does't support drives larger than 2TB and can it even be flashed to IT mode?

I suggest starting with hardware that is known to work. Picking random hardware is not what you do when you use freenas.

 

[hummer5]

Thanks for everyone's help so far

Any suggestion on the hardware please?

 

[dominator99]

I use a Supermicro X9SCM-F with 16GB ECC RAM with FreeNAS 11 stable with 3No. 1TB & 1No. 2TB mirrors (5TB total) which works well. I use 2No. 16GB mirrored USB sticks for booting

 

[hummer5]

Thank you so much guys, really appreciate all the help