FreeNAS 8.02 stops at F1/F2 boot loader screen FreeNAS 0.7.2 works fine

[sunflashx]

FreeNAS 8.02 stops at F1/F2/PXE boot loader screen FreeNAS 0.7.2 works fine.

x64 versions for both OSs. Version 8.02 is just a clean newly created image. I'm not trying to upgrade anything.

Any suggestions? I've tried multiple flash drives now. The drive boots correctly on another PC I tried it on. 0.7.2 has been running solid for over a year.

Hardware is:
ASUS P5G43TM PRO Intel G43 / ICH10
8GB RAM
Celeron E3300
6x 1.5TB Samsung
4GB Sandisk flash

 

[sunflashx]

The latest test build of FreeNAS 7 running on FreeBSD 9 runs great, and out of the box runs as fast as I've ever had it going with poking around at the ZFS and SMB settings.

0.7.5 TEST ONLY (revision 9S-9545)

 

[Daisuke]

In BIOS, make sure ONLY your USB stick is listed on the Bootable Devices and see if it works.

 

[sunflashx]

I tried all variations of boot order and usb storage device emulation modes.

 

[Daisuke]

No, I meant to disable ALL boot devices except the USB stick. In your boot list, you should see only the USB device.

 

[sunflashx]

Yes, did that too. It was starting to boot from the USB, I was presented with the first boot loader thingy that is BSD related.

 

[Daisuke]

Just to make sure, in my BIOS I only see the 'Patriot Memory' option as bootable device while the disks are set in AHCI mode. When you start the computer, you get the BSD loader with a bar that spins fast? What is happening next? Try to disconnect the drives and see if you can boot. I know that you will not be able to import the .7 volumes in 8.0.3 version, not sure if this is planned for 8.3 or other version. So you have to find a way to copy your data elsewhere, kill the disks partitions and let FreeNAS 8.0.3 partition them 'properly' again.

 

[Daisuke]

Just to make sure, in my BIOS I only see the 'Patriot Memory' option as bootable device while the disks are set in AHCI mode. When you start the computer, you get the BSD loader with a bar that spins fast? What is happening next? Try to disconnect the drives and see if you can boot. I know that you will not be able to import the .7 volumes in 8.0.3 version not sure if this is planned for 8.3 or other version. So you have to find a way to copy your data elsewhere, kill the disks partitions and let FreeNAS 8.0.3 partition them 'properly' again.

 

[sunflashx]

Yes, the flash device is listed by name as a bootable device. It has no trouble booting in the FreeNAS .7 tree, or whatever you want to call them. I tried running hard drives set as SATA and AHCI mode, no difference. I didn't try disconnecting the drives though, I'll give that a shot.

My data would import fine, it's a ZFS RAIDZ1, and I haven't upgraded my pool to ZFS v28 yet.

 

[sunflashx]

While I had this system attached to a monitor and keyboard to add some more drives I found that I can boot to FreeNAS 8.2 if I hit F8 and choose the Flash drive from the drive list. I'm not sure why I never tried that before.

However it still won't boot automatically to the 8.2 Flash drive by default as FreeNAS 7 does. Same behavior it's always had.

Something to do with the FreeNAS 8 bootloader is different from the FreeNAS 7 loader. Is there a config file or something somewhere I can compare or tune?

 

[cyberjock]

Not that I know of. You could try zeroing out your USB key, then install FreeNAS to the key. It could be that some remnant of past data is causing problems.

You didn't specifically say you temporarily unplugged the FreeNAS 7 key, but I'll assume you didn't have 2 FreeNAS USB keys installed at the same time. You may have to choose the new USB key as your primary boot device in the BIOS after unplugging the FreeNAS 7 key.

If it's neither of those I don't know what to tell you. The FreeNAS bootloader is probably a newer version than FreeNAS 7, but it should work just fine. You are the only person making this complaint... ;)