FreeNAS Installation Boot Loop

[antroso]

Decided to switch my home server over to FreeNAS but I can't get the installer to work. I had to change around some Bios settings to get it to stop hanging immediately as it tried to boot. After finally get that worked out I thought everything was going to work because I finally got to the ascii shark splash screen. This is as far as it manages to get. Once I tell it to start, or just let the timer go, a lot of lines of console output (or whatever it is) are printed to the screen for quite a while until it reaches a point where it just reboots. From there this continues to loop until I just turned it off.

I checked for hardware compatibility and as far as I could tell that shouldn't be a problem. I have tried remaking the installation media using both rufus and Win32 Disk Imager, using the checksum to make sure my download was fine, and using 2 different USB drives.

System Specs:

Motherboard:​

Asus Z10PE-D16 WS​

CPU:​

2 x Intel Xeon E5-2609 V4​

RAM:​

8 x 8 GB Kingston KVR21R15S4/8​

RAID Hardware:​

LSI Logic SAS9260-8I SGL​

Intel RAID Twenty-four port Expander Card RES2SV240​

Hard drives:​

Samsung 950 PRO 512 GB​

6 x 2 TB HDD​

18 x 1 TB HDD​

 

[jgreco]

Decided to switch my home server over to FreeNAS but I can't get the installer to work. I had to change around some Bios settings to get it to stop hanging immediately as it tried to boot. After finally get that worked out I thought everything was going to work because I finally got to the ascii shark splash screen. This is as far as it manages to get. Once I tell it to start, or just let the timer go, a lot of lines of console output (or whatever it is) are printed to the screen for quite a while until it reaches a point where it just reboots. From there this continues to loop until I just turned it off.

I checked for hardware compatibility and as far as I could tell that shouldn't be a problem. I have tried remaking the installation media using both rufus and Win32 Disk Imager, using the checksum to make sure my download was fine, and using 2 different USB drives.

System Specs:

Motherboard:​

Asus Z10PE-D16 WS​

CPU:​

2 x Intel Xeon E5-2609 V4​

RAM:​

8 x 8 GB Kingston KVR21R15S4/8​

RAID Hardware:​

LSI Logic SAS9260-8I SGL​

Intel RAID Twenty-four port Expander Card RES2SV240​

Hard drives:​

Samsung 950 PRO 512 GB​

6 x 2 TB HDD​

18 x 1 TB HDD​

The 9260 is not an acceptable HBA for FreeNAS. Please see https://www.ixsystems.com/community...bas-and-why-cant-i-use-a-raid-controller.139/

In theory a workstation board might work with FreeNAS, but in practice they often have quirks and might be freaking out at the number of drives or something like that.

 

[antroso]

Oh ok, but would that stop from even installing it in the first place?

 

[jgreco]

Oh ok, but would that stop from even installing it in the first place?

Sure. You can't even get the installer to come up? That's pretty bad. Your RAID controller might be stomping on BIOS data structures. Does a Linux CD boot? Windows?

Server cards like RAID controllers are designed to work with server boards. It's unlikely a workstation board is designed to work with drives numbered all the way from C: to Zlus-one.

 

[antroso]

The installer works as far as the splash screen with the ascii shark logo.

 

[antroso]

Oh I should add:
- Don't have the means to try a CD
- It's currently working with windows server
- My board is at least marketed for server use so I don't really know the distinction you're making
- The RAID controller turns it into only 2 drives that the mobo would see