I cannot reach the Console Menu after booting FreeNAS installed on USB flash

[Masroor]

Hi everybody,

I have an Overland SnapServer 210 (NAS box) containing two seagate 1TB hard disks. I already installed a FreeNAS 8.0.4 on my 8GB HP USB flash disk. I can boot my NAS box using flash USB. But at the last step after showing the DATE & TIME it just wait for a while (around 2 minutes) and then reboots! I cannot reach Console Menu as a normal procedure. When I plug the same USB flash on my PC and boot then I can reach the Console Menu there. Kindly note that my NAS box cannot be connected to a monitor and I am using Hyper Terminal on my PC while it is connected to the NAS box via serial port. Using this method I could see that I cannot reach the Console Menu after booting the FreeNAS. The nice thing is that I can connect to the NAS box through web GUI before rebooting !!!

After reboot a page appears which shows the grab> prompt and this page will be shown each time after reboot. Of course the FreeNAS will be inaccessible via web GUI in this phase.

Please help me what is my mistake in installation that NAS box reboot the OS automatically after 1~2 minutes without showing the Console Menu or login prompt.

Thanks

 

[Masroor]

Any answers? Please help !!!!

 

[cyberjock]

No ideas. What's changed on your server recently? If nothing, perhaps you have a hardware failure occurring?

In any case, whatever your problem is, you're going to have to do some initial troubleshooting on your own to start. Try a RAM test to start.

 

[Stephens]

Kindly note that my NAS box cannot be connected to a monitor

Why not? If the server won't boot, this adds an seemingly unnecessary handcuffing while trying to resolve the issue. You can't see any BIOS error messages and all kinds of other things. My advice... attach a monitor.

 

[Masroor]

Thanks noobsauce80 for your reply. Actually the device hardware is working perfect because it works fine with GuardianOS. The problem is that the GuardianOS will be installed on a physical hard disk inside the NAS and whenever the hard disk crashes I lose all the OS and data together. So that I decided to install FreeNAS OS on external USB drive to be sure that if the hard disk crashes at least I can access the NAS and the whole package won't die.
As I mentioned in my explanation the same USB flash is running prefect under VMWare:

And here is the image of HyperTerminal which shows boot function of the same USB flash under NAS unit. As the NAS unit has no input monitor port I have to connect Serial cable and monitor it through the RS232 port.

In the image where I draw the first red line is the point that freeNAS stops continuing the boot sequence. Even I modified and remarked the command line in ttys file which cause the "freenas getty[2776]: open /dev/ttyv0: No such file or directory" error message, because I have no display device in my NAS unit. But again FreeNAS didn't continue the boot sequence and stucks in DATE & TIME display line.
Which commands run after showing this DATE & TIME? May be something is wrong in ttys or other boot scripts!

 

[Masroor]

Why not? If the server won't boot, this adds an seemingly unnecessary handcuffing while trying to resolve the issue. You can't see any BIOS error messages and all kinds of other things. My advice... attach a monitor.

Thanks for your reply Stephens.
My NAS device has no input monitor port. The device is designed like this. The only chance to monitor its activities is using RS232 cable and using HyperTerminal to catch what is happening inside the device. In my above post you can see what I captured by HyperTerminal.

 

[Masroor]

Any helps!!!!

 

[pirateghost]

After looking up the specs on that thing, it appears that GuardianOS is the default OS installed on it?

What physical hardware makes up the NAS box? Just because GuardianOS works perfectly doesnt mean that it is supported by FreeNAS, considering it might just be a completely proprietary bit of hardware.

Not sure what it is you are expecting to work without some hackery as I have not found any other instances of FREENAS running on that particular hardware. it sounds like you are trying to put a square peg in a round hole and expecting it to turn into a triangle.

first thought is that the controllers are not compatible, and its causing kernel panic and rebooting you.

 

[Masroor]

After looking up the specs on that thing, it appears that GuardianOS is the default OS installed on it?

What physical hardware makes up the NAS box? Just because GuardianOS works perfectly doesnt mean that it is supported by FreeNAS, considering it might just be a completely proprietary bit of hardware.

Not sure what it is you are expecting to work without some hackery as I have not found any other instances of FREENAS running on that particular hardware. it sounds like you are trying to put a square peg in a round hole and expecting it to turn into a triangle.

first thought is that the controllers are not compatible, and its causing kernel panic and rebooting you.

The NAS Box configuration is as below:

Module Version:3F.01
Manufacturer:VIA
VIA C7 Processor 1500MHz
Frequency :1.50GHz
FSB Speed :400MHz
Cache L1 :128 KB
Cache L2 :128 KB
Ratio Actual Value:15

AMIBIOS
Version :08.00.14
Build Date:03/13/09
ID :WAV40602
Processor
VIA C7 Processor 1500MHz
Speed :1500MHz
Count :1
System Memory
Size :1024MB
2xSATA Seagate HDD 1TB each

The GuardianOS is the default OS on this NAS. But I formatted the HDDs and there is no OS installed there and USB flash is the only way to run the box.

 

[cyberjock]

Have you EVER had FreeNAS work correctly after installation? Is this a situation where you're trying to install FreeNAS as a new OS on the machine or has FreeNAS been running fine and suddenly it's not working?

If FreeNAS has never worked there's probably some kind of hardware compatibility issue. Someone else would have to provide insight on how to find it, if it's even something you can "disable" or physically detach.