Freeze before install

[smokintbird]

Background
This was a working ProxmoxVE server with a FreeNAS VM using the HDDs as a RAIDz1 array. The machine worked beautifully, if you could overlook the 11MB/Sec R/W over Samba. So I pulled the Proxmox system SSD out and inserted the 9.3Beta Install CD and a blank USB key to be the new system drive, then I reboot and have this boot hang-up problem.....but if I reinsert the ProxmoxVE SSD the system boots fine and happily runs a VM of FreeNAS just fine.

I have also tried installing CentOS 6.5 and some version of Ubuntu on here since noticing this problem, but had no issues installing and both worked perfectly. That being said, I tried NAS4Free and had the same problem, but it is also another BSD based OS versus the others being Linux...for what it's worth.

The boot progression is this:
-Power on server
-wait ~50 seconds while MB waits to make sure RAID cards are up and running before detection
-watch Bios post which takes ~30 seconds including AHCI drive detection
-boots from CD and loads Grub
-choose the FreeNAS installer option from Grub or wait the few seconds for the installer to be auto-selected
-watch for ~30 seconds as many lines are displayed while the machine loads the installer
-the server locks up at one of the screens shown below somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 minutes after initial power-on
-If left alone, 5 or 10 minutes later the machine beeps as if it rebooted, but seems to be in a low power state I can't wake it up from.....I just cycle power or reset button to bring it back for another try.



This picture below is the most recent with only the base hardware, 6-HDDs attached to motherboard AHCI controller, 8GBUSB3MemoryStick attached directly to motherboard over USB2, Internal IDE CD Drive connected directly to motherboard, and the FreeNAS install CD.



Below is a list of the base hardware, then a list of other hardware I have tried while having either the SAME problem or a more significant problem, and finally a list of general parts I changed out at different times trying to find a solution.

Base Hardware
-SuperMicro X7QC3 Motherboard
-4x Intel Xenon E7340 Quad Core Processors
-32GB ECC DDR2 RAM
-Built-In Motherboard Dual Gigabit Ethernet
-Built-In Motherboard Intel AHCI SATA Controller, Compatibility Mode, or RAID mode(I tried all of them, but the AHCI is default)
-Internal IDE DVD-ROM Drive
-Dual Redundant 1kW Power Supplies each on independent UPS units
-Only VGA video, PS2 Keyboard, and power cords attached

Optionally Tried Hardware
-LSI 8208ELP 4x-PCI-Express 8-port SAS/SATA RAID Controller
-SiliconImage 4540 1x-PCI-Express 4-port SATA RAID Controller
-IBM Broadcom Nextreme1000T PCI-X 2-Port Gigabit Controller
-Sandisk Extreme 64GB USB3 Memory Stick
-Sony Class 10 Micro SDHC Transflash card in No-Name USB2 Card Reader
-No-Name 8GB USB3 Memory Stick
-No-Name 4GB USB2 Memory Stick
-Samsung USB2 CD/DVD Burner
-Promise Ultra100TX2 PCI 4-port IDE Controller
-LG 5.25" 16x Internal IDE DVD Burner
-6x - 3TB WD Red SATA HDD
-2x - 120GB Seagate Baracuda SATA HDD
-120GB OCZ Vertex 4 SATA SSD
-40GB Fujitsu IDE HDD

Multiples Tried of Each
-Keyboards
-Mice
-Power Supplies
-Monitors
-SATA, IDE, SAS, USB, and Cat5e Cables

Boot media tried with comparable results
Verified here means I used UltraISO to recreate the ISO from the physical media, then hashing the new ISO using MultiHasher, and finally comparing the SHA256 hash of that new ISO with the original ISO hash from website. Since every disc I burned was correct to the website hash, I stopped verifying the install media after I began trying USB media.
-2x - 9.3Beta on CD - Verified
-2x - 9.3Release on CD - Verified
-2x - 9.2.1Release x64 on CD - Verified
-8.3 Release x64 on CD - Verified
-9.3Release x64 on USB
-9.2.1Release x64 on USB
-8.3Release x64 on USB

Additional
I have read that FreeNAS will sometimes have install problems if the HDDs, SSDs, or USB drives have weird formatting, so I loaded up a Parted Magic CD in the machine and overwrote each drive's MBR msdos style just to prevent those issues.

I could setup a camera to document the entire boot process...or maybe pic out each setting page from the bios setup so maybe someone could spot the problem...

I'm open to thoughts or suggestions! No option too obscure, I'll try them all.

 

[dlavigne]

Why 9.3BETA?

Do you get the same issue with the latest STABLE? There were many boot fixes since RELEASE.

 

[DifferentStrokes]

I had this problem before. I checksumed the ISO to find it was bad. Redownloaded and all was good. Might be worth checking.

 

[mjws00]

Not sure if you checked the BIOS revision. But there were issues with FreeBSD on that board solved by a BIOS update. I would also wonder if it supports booting from a gpt device for 9.3. Aside from those notes in the Supermicro FAQ and on old freebsd lists info is pretty rare for that config with BSD. One work around was literally booting linux, then rebooting to bsd and it would run. Very odd stuff.

The pragmatic side of me would update the BIOS, give it a quick shot with 9.2.1.9, possibly boot a FreeBSD 9.2 CD. Then leave it with Proxmox/Linux, and come up with newer compatible hardware for FreeNAS.

Good luck.

 

[smokintbird]

Why 9.3BETA?

Do you get the same issue with the latest STABLE? There were many boot fixes since RELEASE.

Near the bottom of my OP I mention that I have tried 4 different versions of the OS.

I tried 9.3Beta, because it sounded like a good idea at the time.
I also tried 9.3 release, 9.2.1 release, and 8.3 release versions with the exact same problem.

 

[smokintbird]

I had this problem before. I checksumed the ISO to find it was bad. Redownloaded and all was good. Might be worth checking.

Near the bottom of my OP I mention that I have tried verifying the boot CD by using UltraISO to recreate the ISO from the disc and then used MultiHasher to get the SHA256 hash from the newly created ISO...they ALWAYS matched with the posted SHA256 Hash listed for the version downloaded on the web site.

I did this more than 8 physical CDs burned from 3 different DVD burners just to make sure that there wasn't a problem with the burner, and I also used more than one brand of blank CD for the same reason.

 

[smokintbird]

Not sure if you checked the BIOS revision. But there were issues with FreeBSD on that board solved by a BIOS update. I would also wonder if it supports booting from a gpt device for 9.3. Aside from those notes in the Supermicro FAQ and on old freebsd lists info is pretty rare for that config with BSD. One work around was literally booting linux, then rebooting to bsd and it would run. Very odd stuff.

The pragmatic side of me would update the BIOS, give it a quick shot with 9.2.1.9, possibly boot a FreeBSD 9.2 CD. Then leave it with Proxmox/Linux, and come up with newer compatible hardware for FreeNAS.

Good luck.

I never checked the BIOS version!

That's definitely next on my list, but having tried several different versions of FreeNAS including 9.2.1 release, do you really think it would be worth it to try the 9.2.1.9? I will download a FreeBSD 9.2 ISO and try that also....


(I must have forgotten to hit Post Reply for this one...)

 

[mjws00]

9.2.1.9 is the last best version that uses mbr. The differences between 9.2.1 and 9.2.1.9 shouldn't affect boot... but there are lots of bug fixes and other things that were fixed along the way. So why waste time on an old version. You don't gain anything.

Since we don't know how your gear will deal with gpt booting, I'd leave it out of the equation. 9.3 is a bit of a moving target, imho. So not a good troubleshooting device.

 

[smokintbird]

(EDITED) First I did update the BIOS on my Supermicro MB but it was only a single version back and made no difference I can tell.

Since my last post, I have tried the following:
FreeBSD 9.1 - Identical Problem
FreeBSD 10.1 - Identical Problem
FreeNAS 9.2.1.9 - Identical Problem
FreeNAS 9.1 - Identical Problem
FreeNAS 8.3 - Installed Correctly after the 8th try and ONLY when no HDDs are installed, seems to work except the web interface simply shows "Welcome to NGINX" (or something similar) when accessed from the web interface. No amount of resetting to defaults for the web interface or the entire system would change the message.

Time to write off the older server as "Unsupported Hardware" unless someone else has any bright ideas...
***End of Old Business***

***New Business***
A completely different piece of hardware:
MSI 880G-E45 Motherboard
AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1045T Processor
16GB RAM

This time it usually installs, but freezes soon after booting from the installed drive!

I tried PATA HDDs, SATA HDDs, SAS HDDs, and USB2 Flash Drives with comparable results.

I tried installing from CD and USB for the following images:
FreeBSD 9.1
FreeBSD 10.1
FreeNAS 9.3 Beta
FreeNAS 9.3
FreeNAS 9.2.1.9
FreeNAS 9.1
FreeNAS 8.3
NAS4Free 9.3.0.2
NAS4Free 9.2.0.1
All seemed to install correctly, but never booted after install.

I then installed and successfully tested the following OSs
Windows 10 Tech Preview
Windows 7 Ultimate
Proxmox VE 3.4
CentOS 7.0
Ubuntu Server 14.04.2LTS


I searched this forum and the FreeBSD forum thoroughly and found MANY posts from people experiencing the same problem with each of the BSD based OSs...

"your hardware is probably not supported" seems to be the BSD mantra while Linux seems to support every little obscure widget out there without a hiccup.

Don't take my remarks the wrong way, I am just decidedly frustrated after having such a wonderful experience using BSD based OSs inside VMs...it is more than a little disappointing to have this much trouble with real hardware.


Does anyone have any suggestions? ( HELP!!! :)