SOLVED FreeNAS keeps installing on the wrong disk

[ArthurAttout]

I have a rig with 2 x 1TB disks, and a 320Gb disk that I want to use to install FreeNAS on.
During the installation process, I double-triple check I install FreeNAS on the 320Gb disk.
However, after the installation, when I boot on the 25Gb drive, if I add a new volume, I only see 1 x 1TB disk and my 320Gb drive as available.

Since I cannot share the disk FreeNAS is installed on, I guess it's because FreeNAS is installed on my other 1TB drive.
So the target I specified during the install is not respected.

Has this ever happened to anyone ? Am I misreading the configuration menu ?

 

[HoneyBadger]

Disconnect the two 1TB disks during the installation and try again?

 

[ArthurAttout]

Okay, I just tried, and there is some evidence I had two different installation of FreeNAS on different drives. For some reason, I cannot get the machine to boot on the 320Gb drive, even if I disable every other option and only leave this one.

It will keep on booting on the 1Tb drive installation unless I unplug it.

I don't know if it's the drive or the MB (or FreeNAS), but the drives don't seem to be hot swappable, so I'm forced to remove the evil drive and format it elsewhere, then plug it back. Unless there's a trick ?

 

[Redcoat]

What boot drive is selected in the motherboard's BIOS?

 

[ArthurAttout]

I'm going through UEFI to setup this. I have 3 slots to select boot devices. I chose the 1st slot to be the 320Gb drive, and the 2 other are disabled.

After the initial setup, the computer still boots on the 1TB drive

 

[Redcoat]

Disconnect the two 1TB drives. Reinstall the OS on the SSD.

If you can delete the other two BIOS boot slots (the disabled ones) I would do so, leaving just the one entry in the boot list, of course save and exit.

Then reboot and interrupt the boot with the appropriate key for your mobo, and check the correct boot drive is still selected (there may be a popup "select/change the boot device" option, or similar). Correct if necessary and allow the system to boot.

When you respond, please provide the details requested in the Forum Rules here https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/forum-guidelines.45124/, or click on the red text at the top of the page, so that it is possible for context-specific comments to be made by someone familiar with your mainboard and/or its BIOS.

 

[tfran1990]

wipe the 1TB drive.
install freenas with only the ssd attached,then make sure it boots with only the ssd.
Then try to create pool

 

[Chris Moore]

You could boot from the correct drive, then attach the two 1TB drives while the system is running, if hot-swap is supported. This will ensure FreeNAS is running from the correct boot media and allow the other media to be used for the creation of a storage pool.

 

[ArthurAttout]

I'll be honest, this thing got me a little frustrated, so I grabbed Darik's Boot and Nuke, and wiped both 1TB hard drives (as I didn't know which one still held the FreeNAS installation). The HDD are currently being wiped.

I couldn't hot-swap the HDD while the system is running, FreeNAS didn't detect anything unless rebooted.

Here are my specs as requested

• Asus A88xm-a
• AMD a6 6400 K
• 4Go RAM (yes it's not enough, but that's a test bench)
• 1 x HDD Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-75X (1TB)
• 1 x HDD Seagate ST1000LM024 (1TB)
• 1 x HDD Hitachi 320Gb
• Both hard disk controller and network cards are embedded ones on the MB

I purposely chose to install FreeNAS on my 320Gb HDD because after trying with several USB keys, and experiencing painfully slow performances (about 2h to install base-os) I concluded my USB controllers were probably bad. About 2 minutes for the full install on my HDD though.

 

[ArthurAttout]

I can now confirm the installation was properly done on the HDD I specified, but the issue was from the MB that somehow did not boot on the device I expected it to.

The software is now running as expected, and I can see/share both my 1TB HDDs through the GUI.

 

[Redcoat]

Glad you got it sorted out.

 

[Ericloewe]

the issue was from the MB that somehow did not boot on the device I expected it to.

Gotta love BIOS vendors!