Freenas Boot Failed to load

Vincentca

Cadet
Joined
Feb 26, 2021
Messages
5
Hello,
I don't know if there's really any hope for me but I figured I would try and ask in the forums since there are much more knowledgeable people out there than me when it comes to FreeNAS.
Hardware:
- Dell Poweredge T140
- 3 X 1TB sata drives

Software:
- FreeNAS 11.3 (not sure the exact version, since I can't boot)

Mainly use FreeNAS for SMB filesharing.
Everything was working fine, except for new drives that I tried to map were not mapping (kept getting failed credentials even though I was using the correct ones).
Tried connecting to the GUI, but got something like this related post where it would hang at connecting to NAS.
Went to the physical machine and viewed the screen where it said something about ethernet reestablished(don't think it was related).
Normal options were presented. I selected the option to reboot, and nothing happened for an hour. So I did a hard reboot using the power button on the machine.
When the machine came back online it now gives me:
Code:
Load Path: \EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI

Load Device: PciRoot (0x0) /Pci (0x14,0x0) /USB (0x10,0x0) /HD (1,GPT,5D2C7CF8-645C-11EA-BA5B-...,0x28,0x82000)
BootCurrent: 0000
BootOrder: 0009 0001 0000[*]

Probing 12 block devices........+.+.+ done
ZFS found the following pools: FilePool
UFS found no partitions

Failed to load '/boot/loader/.efi'

panic: No bootable partitions found!


Boot Failed: Disk connected to front USB1:


No boot device available or Operating System detected.

Please ensure a compatible bootable media is available.


I started to panic when it said "panic: No bootable partitions found"

I'm familiar, but also still a newb when it comes to this stuff. So I didn't even think to make a backup of configurations. Nor did I know that you could clone the operating system onto other USB drives...

Is there any way to recover from this?
I also had jails set up, is that stored on the hard drives, or am I in trouble there too?
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2015
Messages
1,150
The good news is, the data is likely all there, the problem is you now have no way to boot and use any of it. Sadly this smells of trouble. If you have no backups, youll likely be starting from scratch with configuration. Its not all bad news though. As i said your data is likely all there and intact. With clever maneuvering you can likely recover totally from this. Also its a good chance to get up to date, and after this I guarantee youll never not have a handful of config backups laying around. Good practice.

My advice would be to get the latest TrueNAS installed (to a more reliable SSD or HDD, or even better 2 of them in a mirror) and your existing pools imported and work from there on (re)configuration. For the most part you'll just be trying to duplicate everything the way you had it, but also use this chance to fix things you might have misconfigured and such. This is the tricky part for sure and im not sure on what you can do to "import" your jails as im sure they are all out of date. Again, its not all bad news. You can likely grab your configs (if not entire directories) and such from inside the jail to help on reconfig of softwares. In fact if you have the space you might do a backup of your entire jail pool as well as a snapshot as youll want to jettison that old data at some point once your running, but you also dont want to lose any of that data accidentally until your in production again.
 

Vincentca

Cadet
Joined
Feb 26, 2021
Messages
5
@John Digital Thanks for your reply.

I did manage to get everything restored.
I did have to do a fresh install of the OS. I set it up on a SATA SSD this time, not taking chances. And I plan on getting two M.2 drives as a final dual mirrored setup.

Actually surprised how easy it was to get everything up and running again.

I still need to work on the Jails. One of them I can probably just remove since it wasn't being used. But the other was a SyncThing server that I need to figure out how to get going again. I think it's just networking stuff that I need to set up again to get it going.

Definitely a learning experience. Plan on setting up a cron job to backup configurations weekly to a cloud storage location.
 

Redcoat

MVP
Joined
Feb 18, 2014
Messages
2,924
There may be a way to get you back right were you were with your original config.

Unless you had your system files on the boot drive (by default they are moved to the first-created pool) then there should be a copy of your config files on your pool - FreeNAS saves them automagically.

Start as JohnDigital suggests - get the latest version of TrueNAS on a new boot drive and boot up your machine, log in to the GUI. But, before attempting to import your pool, go into shell and cd to /var/db/system, and list the contents with ls. If you find a listing like "configs -- a big hex number" , open the latest dated version and your latest config file and the the id of the last version FreeNAS you were using will be in there. Here's what MC (Midnight Commander) is showing on one of my boxes for my latest saved config file set:
1614459785964.png


Then you have a choice - use that config file with the latest version of TrueNAS and work out any issues as JohnDigital suggests, or alternatively download the actual version of FreeNAS that you were using at the time of the crash, put that on a new boot medium, boot up that version, load the found config file and import your pool - at that point you should be back at square one.
 

Vincentca

Cadet
Joined
Feb 26, 2021
Messages
5
There may be a way to get you back right were you were with your original config.
But, before attempting to import your pool,
@Redcoat
Too late, I already imported my pool. I'm guessing I just have to stick with what I have now.

I do have stuff in the location you specified, but I'm guessing that's now the new configurations from TrueNAS.
Code:
root@truenas[~]# ls /var/db/system
configs-1d75fdc729874c0cb54b5da2552ea8c9
configs-7bdf26d378f44463a02df9c5bc4d0ea3
cores
nfs-stablerestart
nfs-stablerestart.bak
rrd-1d75fdc729874c0cb54b5da2552ea8c9
rrd-7bd
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2015
Messages
1,150
Ive had a script doing it so long I didnt actually know this, derr.
 

Redcoat

MVP
Joined
Feb 18, 2014
Messages
2,924
I do have stuff in the location you specified, but I'm guessing that's now the new configurations from TrueNA
For Sh--s and Giggles, take a look - my guess is one Config- is your new one, one has the old info. Try out MC.

Anyway, I'm glad you have made progress!!!
 
Last edited:
Top