FreeNAS not booting, need help troubleshooting / advice [noob]

[bob2000]

I'm really a big noob, so if I'm missing pertinent info please let me know. I've been googling, and searching the forums, and I'm reluctant to start trying anything without discussing it first.

I think what happened is my USB boot drive failed.
I don't really know how to determine that actually is what happened.

Unfortunately, I dont have a backup config. In the forums I keep seeing people mentioning it. Am I in big trouble if I dont have it or will I still be able to import my drives to a new OS?

Does anyone have any reccomended steps I should follow to troubleshoot? Should I install a new version of FreeNAS on a new USB drive and see if that boots?

I was running FreeNAS 9.3, with raid z2

EDIT: I believe this thread is relevant:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/reinstall-without-config-file-backup-please-help.51500/

It looks like JeffNJ did a clean install of FreeNAS, and was able to get to his files, but had to reconfigure his server. I assume this is what I need to do. Is that correct? Are there any steps i should take to assure no data loss?

 

[sretalla]

Your drives are still OK as long as whatever caused you to stop booting hasn't also had an impact on them (physical damage to the machine or a power surge or something like that).

You may be able to recover your config database from the key if it's really important, but just installing a fresh copy and re-importing the volumes is the simplest if there is nothing special about your config.

 

[Chris Moore]

I was running FreeNAS 9.3, with raid z2

An important point. If you were able to recover your config.db from the old boot media, you would need to re-install with 9.3 to import that db file.
If you do a clean install (whether you import the db file or not) exit out of the wizard. The wizard will try to take your disks and create a new pool and that would wipe out your existing data. You don't want to do that, you want to import the existing pool.
For some reason the documentation calls a zfs pool a volume, so please don't get confused.:
http://doc.freenas.org/11/storage.html#import-volume

 

[Chris Moore]

Does anyone have any reccomended steps I should follow to troubleshoot? Should I install a new version of FreeNAS on a new USB drive and see if that boots?

Do you have a mirrored pair of USB sticks or just the one?
You could post a hardware description along with a description of the problem that led you to think the USB stick failed:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/updated-forum-rules-8-3-16.45124/

 

[bob2000]

exit out of the wizard.

Super helpful links Chris Moore. I'm going to try this now.

I was only using a single USB. I will update with my hardware.

 

[bob2000]

Hardware:
USB:

• SanDisk Cruzer Fit 8GB

Motherboard:

• ASRock Rack > C2550D4I

CPU make and model:

• (I think this is onboard one?) Intel Avoton C2550 Quad Core 2.4GHZ featuring 14W TDP

RAM:

• Crucial 16GB Kit (8GBx2)

Hard Drives: (I'm not sure how to get raid configuration)

• 3 of WD Red 4TB NAS Hard Drive: WD40EFRX
• 3 of Seagate 4TB NAS Hard Drive: ST4000VN000

hard disk controllers (on board)
network cards (on board)

 

[bob2000]

So, I have a feeling it's something with the motherboard, and not the USB Drives. I thought it was the USB Drive, because it appears that the computer is on, and running, the lights on the motherboard are lit up, and fans are blowing, but no FreeNAS.

Now, I think it might have something to do with the motherboard, because, when I boot up, the boot menu never appears on the monitor (monitor was not connected previously), and the new USB drive that I installed FreeNAS on has an LED, but the LED never lights up, so I feel like power is not going to the USB, or VGA. From a network perspective, when I look at the routers connected clients, I can see the IP of the NAS, but when I navigate to it, it's the motherboard's ASRock homepage.

Should I power down the computer and pop out the CMOS battery?? I'm stuck again.

 

[sretalla]

It looks like you can get the IPMI interface of the motherboard, so it's probably worth looking at what it can tell you and if it can help you to do something about the problem.

What can you see in that Asrock interface?

 

[bob2000]

What can you see in that Asrock interface?

I don't really see much that's very useful to me, but that may be because I dont know what to look for... Just current sensor information, which I don't really understand, and the event logs just seem to list every time the computer started up.

 

[Bonnie Follweiler]

I have no idea if this is going to be helpful but on Reddit someone was discussing that motherboard and the symptoms sound similar?
https://www.reddit.com/r/freenas/comments/5m4e7n/freenas_and_another_asrock_rack_c2550d4i_failure/

 

[sretalla]

That does look suspiciously exactly the same as what we're encountering here.

 

[bob2000]

I have no idea if this is going to be helpful but on Reddit someone was discussing that motherboard and the symptoms sound similar?
https://www.reddit.com/r/freenas/comments/5m4e7n/freenas_and_another_asrock_rack_c2550d4i_failure/

yeah, even on here the same symptoms are being reported
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/asrock-c2550d4i-not-working.50096/

And I'm reading about the Intel C2000 CPU range failures all over this forum as well. I guess it's time to reach out to ASRock. If anyone has instructions on how to swap a motherboard that'd point me in the right direction, I'd be very grateful.

 

[bob2000]

FYI, I worked with ASRock to determine that the board may be defective. They had me send the board in and they replaced it. I swapped the boards, and I'm back in business. Thank you all very much for your help.