FreeNAS Stable 9.3 - Unable to boot USB

[jay_lew]

Hi Guys,

I have been using FreeNAS 9.2.1.x for over a year know and absolutely love it. After some playing around I have my setup working flawlessly.

However, I have been struggling with upgrading to 9.3 for weeks now, and haven't had any success. Whenever I try and boot from the 9.3 USB image, all I see is a blinking cursor, no other messages. I've tried multiple 8Gb and 16Gb sticks, and have confirmed that the USB image is good as I've booted on other machines. As mentioned, 9.2.1.9 boots fine on my server.

Here are my specs:

HP DC7800 machine
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6750 @ 2.66GHz
RAM: 6 Gb

As per this: https://bugs.pcbsd.org/issues/5961
it seems that it may be a BIOS issue.. I've enabled/disabled the legacy boot in my BIOS, but still no dice, and played with setting different MBR boot flags using gdisk, and nada.

I've also tried the latest FreeNAS 9.3 nightlies as a shot in the dark, but no luck.

Hoping someone can steer me in the right direction.

Thanks!

 

[Bidule0hm]

You have only 6GB of RAM, it's under the requirements for FreeNAS 9.3 so you can't expect it to work flawlessly.

 

[jay_lew]

Thanks for the reply, but this doesn't help me with my USB booting issue. FreeNAS 9.2.1.9 is performing just fine for me with 6GB; I will happily install more RAM if required, once I am able to boot 9.3.

Thanks!

 

[cyberjock]

Thanks for the reply, but this doesn't help me with my USB booting issue. FreeNAS 9.2.1.9 is performing just fine for me with 6GB; I will happily install more RAM if required, once I am able to boot 9.3.

Thanks!

You don't understand the "memo". We *know* 9.3 doesn't work right without 8GB of RAM minimum. We don't even bother trying to troubleshoot issues because <8GB of RAM creates so many problems it's not even worth our time to try to help someone that almost certainly has self-inflicted problems to start with.

 

[gpsguy]

As others have pointed out, you really need a minimum of 8GB of RAM. You'd be better off with a server that supported ECC RAM.

That be said, if you haven't upgraded the BIOS, you might want to try that. There's been some chatter recently about problems with the DC7900, see: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/installed-to-usb-will-not-boot.27874/#post-182339 I presume the 7800 is it's predecessor.

 

[jay_lew]

As others have pointed out, you really need a minimum of 8GB of RAM. You'd be better off with a server that supported ECC RAM.

That be said, if you haven't upgraded the BIOS, you might want to try that. There's been some chatter recently about problems with the DC7900, see: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/installed-to-usb-will-not-boot.27874/#post-182339 I presume the 7800 is it's predecessor.

Thanks for the helpful reply. I've checked, and my BIOS is already the latest version. I'm going to check with the user who originally started your post and see if he's had any luck. I'm fairly certain that this is a BIOS issue on my end. My existing setup of 9.2.1.9 works fine, once I can actually get 9.3 booted up on my machine (assuming it's possible), then I can invest in more RAM. I'll look into the ECC RAM as well as per your suggestion.

 

[Bidule0hm]

Don't forget that for ECC RAM to work you need compatible motherboard and CPU.

 

[zorkxy]

Hi



The problem is that your motherboard can’t boot OS from usb stick that is partitioned with GPT (freenas 9.3) instead of mbr (freenas 9.2 and older versions)

You have to “hybrid” your partitions with a tool like gdisk



Install gdisk (GPT FDISK) on your computer



Install Freenas 9.3 onto your USB stick like you did before…(it will not boot, it’s normal)

When it’s done, remove the usb stick and create a hybrid mbr using gdisk (it will not affect your data)

Follow these instructions

http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html

hit “r” to enter recovery/transformation mode

hit “h” to create a hybrid mbr partition

hit “o” to check the partitions table before writing

hit “w” to write the partition table

“p” for listing

“?” for help

you can choose the default values by hitting Enter when gdisk ask for you a MBR Hex code (0xEE etc)

Answer yes when gdisk ask:

Place EFI GPT (0xEE) partition first in MBR (good for GRUB)? (Y/N): y



And voilà, you’ll be able to boot from your usb key



Sorry for my english ;-)



https://bugs.pcbsd.org/issues/7062

 

[Bidule0hm]

Hmm... I don't know why but this seems to be a very bad idea...

The right thing to do is to use decent hardware with FreeNAS (and if you can't even boot on a USB drive it's certainly NOT decent hardware...).

 

[zorkxy]

I was unable to boot from a fresh install of freenas 9.3 using a usb stick (stuck at boot) and the hybrid mbr partition trick solved my problem

Mobo: GIGABYTE - GA-D525T-UD with integrated Atom D525
RAM: 8GB
HDD: 4 x 3TB WD Red Raidz1

I have also upgraded version (latest 9.3) via the GUI with no pb
Everything is working and the GUI run faster than before


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[danb35]

An Atom D525 is very underpowered for FreeNAS. Good for you if it works, but don't be surprised if/when performance slows down unacceptably. And, of course, there's no ECC support, which significantly increases your chance of data corruption.

 

[Bidule0hm]

"the hybrid mbr partition trick" precisely, it's a trick. And FreeNAS doesn't like this kind of trick generally. It may works fine for a while but it may also break (and break pretty badly since it's related to the boot partition...).

You do what you want of course but then don't ask us to solve a future problem ;)

 

[rogerh]

Hmm... I don't know why but this seems to be a very bad idea...

The right thing to do is to use decent hardware with FreeNAS (and if you can't even boot on a USB drive it's certainly NOT decent hardware...).

I am not sure that is entirely true. Some reputable Supermicro motherboards seem to have trouble booting from some USB 3.0 sticks: and there may not be enough GPT partitioned USB flash drives around for motherboard manufacturers to have bothered to make provision for them. Booting from ZFS is not exactly mainstream in Linux or FreeBSD either.

 

[zorkxy]

An Atom D525 is very underpowered for FreeNAS. Good for you if it works, but don't be surprised if/when performance slows down unacceptably. And, of course, there's no ECC support, which significantly increases your chance of data corruption.

No degraded performances with this hardware
I use freenas since version 7
I have a basic utilization of my NAS:
80% for streaming movies (1080p mkv rip and iso blu Ray) jellyfish 120mb/s bitrate test plays flawless on my local network
Photos, documents and personal videos storage
Time machine onto a 500GB IDE HDD
I have acceptable transfers speed via ftp (50/60 MB/s average)



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Bidule0hm]

I am not sure that is entirely true. Some reputable Supermicro motherboards seem to have trouble booting from some USB 3.0 sticks: and there may not be enough GPT partitioned USB flash drives around for motherboard manufacturers to have bothered to make provision for them. Booting from ZFS is not exactly mainstream in Linux or FreeBSD either.

Ok, but then it's very exceptional, I didn't see any thread talking about this problem.

@zorkxy "120mb/s" Mb or MB?

 

[zorkxy]

@Bidule0hm
120Mbps (it's a stream video bitrate)
You can test it here:
http://jell.yfish.us/

Works fine for me from my Freenas to my popcorn hour A400 (multimedia player) or to my mac pro (early 2008 model)

 

[Bidule0hm]

Ok. Of course 120 Mbps work flawlessly, it's 1/10 the speed of a gigabit link :)

And with the FTP benchmark you're at half the max speed of a gigabit link, there is a big margin for improvement.

 

[jay_lew]

Zorkxy, thanks for the reply - I had come across a similar post regarding hybrid MBR but wasn't sure if it applied to my problem. I will try this method and confirm whether the 9.3 USB image boots or not, but probably stick with 9.2.1.9 for now. It sounds as if my set-up might not be well suited for 9.3.

I figure that I should probably look into upgrading to a newer system if I want to seriously run 9.3. I'll browse around the forums to find some recommended specs for a new NAS server.

 

[Bidule0hm]

There is a very nice thread about the recommended hardware, the link is in my sig ;)

 

[Poker]

You have to “hybrid” your partitions with a tool like gdisk

I have the same machine as OP (HP DC7800) and found this post via Google. Unfortunately I haven't been able to apply the gdisk fix successfully.

Exactly what parameters should be used when creating the hybrid partition? E.g. should both original partitions be included, and how should the bootable flag be set on them?

Every parameter combination I have tried so far results in an unbootable drive. :(