FreeNAS 9.3 freezes Dell PC in BIOS stage

[sef]

The same image is used for thumb-drive and CD-ROM booting, so you can treat the .iso as you would have the .img.

 

[Apollo]

I am having the exact same issues described here. I am on an evga x58 board. 9.3 locks up immediately if the usb stick is inserted. 9.2.x runs just fine. Another thing that may help with troubleshooting for people smarter than me is that even after formatting a usb stick that had 9.3 on it, that stick still locks up my machine.

I have used RMPrepUSB v2.1.725 to recover my USB key and make it FAT bootable.
It did however bricked my GARMIN GPS though, so be carefull. Darn GARMIN for its poor design.

 

[danb35]

I am too having this issue, been using 9.2 without problem in a 16GB Kingston. I was wondering, why this version does not have an .IMG option to download? is there a way to convert .ISO to .IMG?

The .iso works as a .img, in that you can image it over to a USB stick and boot the installer that way. However, you must boot the installer and use that to install FreeNAS onto whatever boot media you want to use (which can't be the same device that you're installing from). Due to the change to the ZFS boot filesystem, you can't simply image the FreeNAS OS to your boot device.

 

[Kostas Chartofylis]

I have a Gigabyte p55-us3l / i5 /16GB RAM with the latest bios 7F. I have the same issue! The system boot's normaly from the installation usb stick, completes without error the creaton of the boot usb stick. But when I remove the installation disk, leave the boot disk and reboot the system frozes at the bios welcome screen. I have to press reset to restart the pc. I tried a third usb stick, same results. I also tried different usb ports, with same results. All sticks were Kingston 8Gb the two boot usbs, I tried, where aredifferent type, the installation usb was created with dd commands and works perfectly. I used the FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE-201503270027.iso file.
My first impression was that my usb was fried, because as soon as I connected it to the usb port my system frozed! I checked the bios settings the port is usb2 and the usb storage enabled (otherwise the usb stick where not detected from bios!).
At the BIOS setup screen was the most strange thing I notice!
If I start the system with either of the two (same brand, different model) boot usb connected, the system becomes unresponsive at the bios screen!
If I start the system with the installation usb, everything is working fine.
Now if I first start the system with none usb connected, enter anywhere in bios and then connect my installation usb stick (I first tried it inside the boot order bios screen), nothing happens (as it sould), if I remove the stick the system stays responsive.
The moment I connect any of the two boot usb sticks the system freezes and restarts only from reset. It looks that this is clearly a Hardware problem, probably a problematic port or stick, inadequate power and so on!
Well IT IS NOT!!!
As soon as I delete the partitions, that were created from the installation of the freenas, from either of the two boot sticks the sticks were operating normaly like the installation stick!!!

That comes to cyberjock's suggestion that the bios can not recognize GPT that is part of EFI read more here http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/booting.html
I read somewhere that bios dated 2010 had for sure no uefi support, didn't dig more.
I will try to boot from a HDD!

I hope that helped somebody!
Thank you all guys (and gals) for the great forum!

 

[cyberjock]

P55 is pretty old, so I think you basically summed up the problem. No support for UEFI. :(

 

[Tronyx]

Hey everyone, I too had this issue over the weekend. I was interested why the USB drive froze my machine (Dell Optiplex 740) so I put it into my laptop and wouldn't you know, it booted just fine. I run Fedora on my laptop so I decided to investigate the USB itself further. I noted that the boot partition on the original USB for 9.2.x was flagged as "BOOT" (according to the standard partition utility in Gnome). The new 9.3 was marked as "GRUB_BOOT", weird, ok maybe my bios doesn't like GRUB_BOOT? On a hunch I flagged the partition as "BOOT" and tried to boot on my Dell again. Worked like a charm!

Looking around late last night, however, I did see a bug which said that there was an old error somewhere where the installer would not mark the partition as "ACTIVE" (aka "BOOT" as I understand). Perhaps this bug is resurfacing?

Was having the same issue as the OP and this fixed it! Onyl difference I saw is that the flag for the partition said BIOS_GRUB instead of GRUB_BOOT. Regardless, changing it to just BOOT took care of it. Thanks so much for the information. I created an account just so I could say thanks and let anyone else with this issue know that it fixes it.

 

[Apollo]

Was having the same issue as the OP and this fixed it! Onyl difference I saw is that the flag for the partition said BIOS_GRUB instead of GRUB_BOOT. Regardless, changing it to just BOOT took care of it. Thanks so much for the information. I created an account just so I could say thanks and let anyone else with this issue know that it fixes it.

Maybe a Y2K bug that founds it's way through, or maybe the GRUB_BOOT itself is causing the problem as it is 9 charachers long. Or maybe it is a conspiracy from developpers to not use old hardware and cheap over the counter USB sticks. Or simply a bug nobody cares to fix. Or maybe, yes maybe the hardware is becoming self aware!!!!!!!

 

[Goose]

I found this thread earlier and like others simply changed the flag of the boot partition of the USB key I was using in gparted on my laptop and now I have 9.3 working. I don't consider my motherboard or CPU old so I really think you should look again at this issue. Changing a label must be pretty straight forward mustn't it?

 

[vadim]

I had same issue, bios just hang up and stop responding even to keyboard when 9.3 flash was inserted. Here is a solution: https://bugs.pcbsd.org/issues/5961

I used gdisk (http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/gdisk.html) to create a hybrid MBR:

1. Run gdisk (I used Windows, but I've used the Mac version in the past as well)
2. Select the FreeNAS boot USB
3. Type 'r' to enter Recovery menu
4. Type 'h' to create the Hybrid MBR
5. Follow the prompts. For me, I selected partition 2, and choose all the default options thereafter. Please read the info at the link above and be sure you're not doing something to destroy data!
6. When you're done, type 'w' to commit your changes.

After applying gdisk its booting up finally!

 

[SneakiCow]

I have a Gigabyte p55-us3l / i5 /16GB RAM with the latest bios 7F. I have the same issue!

I have also this almost exact board and just reflagging it BOOT, EFI with gpart fixed it no worries

 

[sef]

What's the exact command?

 

[SneakiCow]

I used a program Gparted. It was nice and easy for my noobish ways. Build a bootable usb stick (i used this for that). Boot to gparted. It has nice GUI. I think i just right clicked on the label (it says GRUB_BOOT). Then there was a menu and I ticked BOOT. Shutdown. Boot freeNAS. It was really just a lucky last chance stab in the dark before I was going to rebuild the NAS4free OS.

 

[sef]

So you did not in fact just use gpart.

 

[SneakiCow]

well technically yes and no... it is the same packages but with a GUI and a Gnome base, as opposed to command line and a different distro. But whatever, It worked and thats all i cared about :D muss nid so grantig

 

[xt4c]

I used a program Gparted. It was nice and easy for my noobish ways. Build a bootable usb stick (i used this for that). Boot to gparted. It has nice GUI. I think i just right clicked on the label (it says GRUB_BOOT). Then there was a menu and I ticked BOOT. Shutdown. Boot freeNAS. It was really just a lucky last chance stab in the dark before I was going to rebuild the NAS4free OS.

Thanks SneakiCow. I followed your advice and went for Gparted. Changed the label in the drop-down menu to BOOT. Worked! Now I have 9.3 up and running!

 

[styno]

Thanks SneakiCow. I followed your advice and went for Gparted. Changed the label in the drop-down menu to BOOT. Worked! Now I have 9.3 up and running!

Same issue & fixed with Gparted on FreeNAS 9.10. (tested on Asus DSBV-D)

 

[sef]

well technically yes and no... it is the same packages but with a GUI and a Gnome base, as opposed to command line and a different distro. But whatever, It worked and thats all i cared about :D muss nid so grantig

No. Not "yes and not" at all. Just pure "no."

gparted is NOT a wrapper around the gpart utility included with FreeBSD / FreeNAS.

 

[sswheeler]

I used a program Gparted. It was nice and easy for my noobish ways. Build a bootable usb stick (i used this for that). Boot to gparted. It has nice GUI. I think i just right clicked on the label (it says GRUB_BOOT). Then there was a menu and I ticked BOOT. Shutdown. Boot freeNAS. It was really just a lucky last chance stab in the dark before I was going to rebuild the NAS4free OS.

Worked like a champ. I was about to abandon FreeNAS 9.10 also, but this is great. Thank you

 

[iafreenas]

The new 9.3 was marked as "GRUB_BOOT", weird, ok maybe my bios doesn't like GRUB_BOOT? On a hunch I flagged the partition as "BOOT" and tried to boot on my Dell again. Worked like a charm!

Thanks. After much searching, this was what solved my FreeNAS 11 boot issue.