Fresh Install of 9.3 from Thumbdrive Fails

[rci3044]

I have been using an old Dell Poweredge T110 as a NAS and haven't had any issues booting from a 4GB thumbdrive. I just upgraded the RAM from 4GB to 16GB and replaced the single 1TB hard drive with 4 new 1TB drives. With this, I decided to upgrade to FreeNAS 9.3 so I put the .iso image onto a new 8GB thumbdrive (formatted in NTFS) using Win32 Disk Imager and fired up the new-and-improved machine.

Everything booted up as expected, the RAM and 4 hard drives were recognized in the BIOS screen, and the thumbdrive was detected and proceeded with the FreeNAS Installer. I selected the install/upgrade option and then selected da4, where the thumb drive was installed. Next, I confirmed the installation and it proceeded to where I set the Root password. As soon as I completed this step and hit OK, a message popped up at the bottom of the screen stating:
"gpart: geom 'da4' Operation Not Permitted"
"dd: /dev/da4: Operation Not Permitted"
"The FreeNAS installation on da4 has failed. Press any key to continue.."

I tried reattempting the install but after it tries to boot from the thumbdrive, I get a message of "error: unknown filesystem. Entering rescue mode... grub rescue>"

So, what happened? How can I get FreeNAS installed on my upgraded machine?

 

[dlavigne]

Are you installing to the same thumbdrive? You need 2 thumb drives if you are installing from one: one for the installer and one to install into.

 

[Fox]

I am trying the 9.3 nightly build (to test a recent Tripplite patch) and I am getting this exact same thing.

I tried using two thumb drives, I boot off of one and tried to install another..

And the thumb drive that I'm booting from is a Sandisk Cruzer 1.20 (16GB), and the one I tried to install on is a UFD Silicon Power 16GB 1.00. I am going to try swapping, booting off the Silicon Power and installing on the Sandisk. The Silicon power might be suspect, since it was an early USB 3.0 thumb drive, and I have used the Sandisk for 9.2. If that is not successful, I will consider this attempt a failure.

 

[Fox]

Oddly, I swapped the two thumb drives, and that included installing the FreeNAS ISO on the Silicon Power drive. I didn't remove the FreeNAS ISO from the Sandisk thumb drive either. I then did a cold reboot, and it then occurred to me that I wouldn't really know what thumb drive it was booting from. It did *seem* that my box insisted on still booting from the Sandisk (I think). I selected to install to the Sandisk anyway, and got the same error, then I told it to install on the Silicon Power, and that worked.

So either the cold reboot helped it, or formatting BOTH USB drives with the FreeNAS ISO did it, or swapping the thumbdrive locations (swapped USB ports) did it. Not sure.. But it is working now for me.. Well, I at least got past this point..

 

[Jeremy Stromsoe]

I've got a continuation to this post with a different error, but same situation. In my case I've upgraded all my computer components and wanted to go with a completely fresh FN 9.3 install. I've got the disc and a clean flash drive. I get all the way to the FN "select drive to install" screen, and after selecting my 8gb micro sd card and entering a password for root I get the following error. I thought I'd just post a pic since the error was so long.

Here are the things I've tried to remedy it with, all of which had the same result:

1. Tried installing a legacy version of freenas via usb drive image (http://download.freenas.org/9.2.1/RELEASE/x64/) and used the .xz file. This boots just fine, but has the exact same issue as above when trying to upgrade to 9.3

2. Tried imaging a USB drive with my old running version of FN, FreeNAS-9.2.1.9, but since that is an x86 version ( I upgraded my hardware to 64bit) it will not upgraded using the disc (throws an error when attempted).

3. Tried a different flash card (32GB instead of 8GB) same error. To me this with this development it smells like a bios setting not allowing the disc to write to the Micro SD card drive for whatever reason...

4. Tried formatting the flash card as FAT32, and also just deleting all volumes on it altogether.

5. Different USB ports, both 3.0 and 2.0, same error.

I checked my BIOS (which for that mobo is crazy, TONS of tweakable options) which has legacy support enabled, so no joy there.

Anyone got an idea of why it would do this? I know the resolution is also kinda wonky, not sure how to fix that. I've tried everything I can think of, I think its the integrated graphics on the mobo that is causing the 640x480 default screen res, combined with my samsung tv "monitor".

I even made a YouTube video of my error, in hopes that it will help.


Let me know! :)

 

[pschatz100]

Interesting. Have you tried a different micro SD card? A usb flash drive?

 

[Jeremy Stromsoe]

I did try that, thanks for the suggestion though.

I guess the real question, what are some *key* BIOS settings I should look out for? My mobo is listed in my sig.

Thanks again :).

 

[cyberjock]

If you read our documentation you'd know we don't recommend any kind of SD card with a converter. ;)