FreeNAS USB boot on UEFI garbage

[JNich]

I have an ASUS AM1I-A motherboard and two Sandisk USB 3.0 sticks "Extreme" and "Ultra Fit". I can put the install ISO on these sticks and have it load up, but I can't install FreeNAS to either one and expect it to boot without kicking me back to the BIOS setup screen. I know there is a long standing bug that nobody knows who is responsible for so I've given up on both these flash devices. What I would like to know is if someone has been able to install FreeNAS to ANY USB flash stick on one of these lousy UEFI boards and have it work? I was able to install 9.2 on these sticks and have them run normally, so maybe the issue is ZFS on USB flash when attached to a UEFI motherboard? It really is annoying because there are only 2 SATA ports on this board and I don't want to waste 999GB installing the OS to one of the two hard drives.

 

[jgreco]

I'd suggest making sure that you don't have something like maybe a "secure boot" option enabled in the BIOS, or possibly a boot ordering option. Does it work if you install it to one of the hard drives?

 

[anodos]

I have an ASUS AM1I-A motherboard and two Sandisk USB 3.0 sticks "Extreme" and "Ultra Fit". I can put the install ISO on these sticks and have it load up, but I can't install FreeNAS to either one and expect it to boot without kicking me back to the BIOS setup screen. I know there is a long standing bug that nobody knows who is responsible for so I've given up on both these flash devices. What I would like to know is if someone has been able to install FreeNAS to ANY USB flash stick on one of these lousy UEFI boards and have it work? I was able to install 9.2 on these sticks and have them run normally, so maybe the issue is ZFS on USB flash when attached to a UEFI motherboard? It really is annoying because there are only 2 SATA ports on this board and I don't want to waste 999GB installing the OS to one of the two hard drives.

To be fair, your motherboard looks like it is pretty far removed from our 'recommended hardware' list.

 

[jgreco]

To be fair, your motherboard looks like it is pretty far removed from our 'recommended hardware' list.

True dat, but for a small two drive system, it's mainly the Realtek and the lack of ECC that's truly objectionable.

 

[gpsguy]

You might try searching the forum using the model number of your mobo. I seem to recall discussions about it - but don't remember the details.

If it's truly just an installation issue - do the install on another system, check to see if you can boot FreeNAS and move the flash drive back to this mobo.


Sent from my phone

 

[JNich]

Secure boot is not enabled, boot order is correct. I attempted to install onto hard drive and that kicked me back to BIOS as well. "Legacy" support is enabled. I know for a fact EXT4 and UFS boot partitions worked. I am 99% sure this is a ZFS verses UEFI issue, or ASUS's UEFI anyway.

 

[nightshade00013]

From what I can tell the board has issues with FreeBSD 9.3 which would be inherited by FreeNAS.

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2014-July/259175.html

The only other thing you can try is to make sure that you select "Other OS" in the settings for UEFI.

Also disable USB 3.0 support, from what I have read in some other threads that can be a problem as well. The ASUS boards just really seem to be a PITA so you may have to find something else to make it work.