Install error 1962 No operating system found on Lenovo thinkcentre

[TheWurst]

Hello all.
I am new to Freenas and this forum. The only experience i have with the nas universe is a old Qnap where everything is done for you, for better and worse :)
I have searched this forum for my perticular problem but have come up empty so I hope that this post is not missplaced.

I gotten my hands on a Lenovo Thinkcentre M72e and thought I would try and make it function as a Nas because it has waaay better specs than the old Qnap.

I followed the installation guide to the letter. Used a USB flashdrive as the installation medium and the latest OS version. Installed on a internal Kingston 128Gb SSD connected by the only SATA port.
Installation went fine. Got to the point where it tells me to reboot and remove the USB with the installer.

This is where the problem starts.
It reboots with the "Error 1962: no operation system found" and then reboots again and again with the samme message.
I changed the boot order in bios, no luck.
I have tried installing with the UEFI setting and the BIOS version. Same result on both
Tried installing the FreeNas OS on another USB flashdrive witch should be possible according to the installation guide. Installation went fine but with the same result.
I tried changing the Boot Mode in bios to either Legacy or UEFI mode, same result. Its on auto as default
Also tried a later OS version with same result.

Dont really know what else to try. The SSD is properly connected because the installation went fine and it shows up in bios aswell. Prior to this setup i used it as a windows media centre so everything is working well.

I have seen people post very detailed system specs, but i dont know how to do that. The specs I can find are the ones from BIOS and a googlesearch for the machine type and model.

Lenovo Thinkcentre M72e tiny formfactor.
Machine type/model: 3267BS2
i5-3470T 2.9Ghz (2cores)
Intel H61 chipset
4GB of ram (i know freenas recommends 8gb but i'll give it a try until i get more ram)
Kingston 128GB SSD for OS
For storage space I will connect a external 4TB HDD on one of the USB ports when and if I get the OS to work.

I hope some of you have some tips and thanks for you time.

 

[HoneyBadger]

That system is completely unsuitable for FreeNAS due to lack of drive bays, and USB is not an acceptable substitute. You can certainly use it to experiment with the OS itself (if you get to 8GB of RAM) but absolutely don't put any data you care about anywhere near it.

The fix for your boot issue is not specific to FreeNAS, but rather to installing any non-Windows OS on the Thinkcentre system; it is coded in the BIOS to only look for the "Windows Boot Manager" string in EFI. You'll have to manually edit the EFI boot record for FreeNAS to make it present itself as such.

Alternatively you can switch to Legacy (BIOS) boot mode, reinstall FreeNAS from the media (which should cause it to put a standard non-EFI bootloader on the disk) and that should work, based on my experience with these machines.

 

[Chris Moore]

connected by the only SATA port.

This is not suitable hardware for FreeNAS.

Lenovo Thinkcentre M72e tiny formfactor.

No drive bays and no expansion slots and only one SATA port. Looking only at the processor spec is not enough.

Here are some links to more information to help you get started. You can't have a successful storage pool connected to the NAS by USB. USB has too much latency. People have tried it before, and it doesn't work.

EDIT: Only if it is a single drive, but that is not a suggested solution.

Hardware Requirements
http://www.freenas.org/hardware-requirements/

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/

Why not to use RAID-5 or RAIDz1
https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/

Hardware Recommendations Guide Rev. 1e) 2017-05-06
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

Hardware Recommendations by @cyberjock - from 26 Aug 2014 - and still valid
https://forums.freenas.org/threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

For storage space I will connect a external 4TB HDD on one of the USB ports when and if I get the OS to work.

A single disk is not a good way to do storage because you are subjecting yourself to the risk of a single disk failure. This gains you nothing over having the storage internal to your computer.

 

[TheWurst]

Thank both of you very much. I will consider another nas setup. thanks

 

[razer0r]

YES, after running against the same wall for a few days and nights, I've stumbled upon the fix... It is Lenovo that has some weird GPT issue but the fix is easy.

install as usual (boot from whatever you get booted), install with bios option (trust me, I`ve tried UEFI too), and when the installation finishes return to shell instead of rebooting.
Run this:
part set -a lenovofix ada0
where ada0 should be the disk you installed to (check your installation just to be sure, at some point it will tell you where it is installing to, in my case that was ada0)

it will reply with
lenovofix set to ada0

now just type
reboot
to reboot your machine and boot from legacy (select legacy only in the bios, that way you do not mix up any boot options)

I've found this by scrolling through any Lenovo boot related bug report, found this:

https://redmine.ixsystems.com/issues/11958

 

[razer0r]

That command needs to be :

gpart set -a lenovofix ada0

 

[dsduarte]

hello... just find this post and need to share my experience in case others find the same issue....
gpart for me didn't work... I was getting an error of command unknown...
My solution was to boot a windows drive and download Lenovo System Update.... After upgrade the BIOS to the latest version, worked like a charm... with BIOS default config.
I hope that somebody could use this solution!!

 

[frmp945]

I'm a long-time FreeNAS/TrueNAS beginner and got the dreaded "error 1962" message on my TS140 yesterday. I thought I'd chime in because none of the threads I could find make clear that there are other reasons that you could get this error message that are unrelated to the apparent "weird GPT issue" discussed as the solution in this and other threads.

In my case, the source of the error turned out to be that my 80GB Intel 320 SSD boot drive experienced the "8MB bug." This results in the drive becoming unresponsive and reporting its capacity to be just 8MB. The funny thing is that I applied the firmware update meant to fix this issue over a decade ago and have never had a problem. I was able to fix the nonresponsive boot drive by following the directions at the above link.

In short, there are a wide variety of conditions that may lead you to get the "error 1962" message when trying to boot TrueNAS. The fix may not be the same one documented earlier in this thread or the one I used.