Lenovo TS140 Install 9.3 via USB and fails after installation

[bmac6996]

Hi.

So redoing Freenas server and installing it fresh with 9.3 (FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE-201506292332) via USB.

After install and then the first reboot, I get the this error. (picture attached)

This is what I tried so far:

- Verified ISO is good download via hash.
- Tried multiple USB thumb drives. USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 8gb, 16gb and 32gb. San disk, Kingston, PNY.
- Using only USB 2.0 ports in the back to do the install.
- Tried increasing that delay time (Via here in the forums) and no luck.
- Installed version 9.2.1.9 on the same thumb drives to verify that it's just a version issue. Version 9.2.1.9 installed with no issues. Assuming thumb drivers are good.

This server has 32 Gigs of ECC Ram running on a E3 1246 Xeon processor.

The bios doesn't allow me to disable usb 3.0 but there's an option for legacy mode which I have to keep on in order for my USB keyboard to work. No option regarding XHCI either.

So looking for ideas and thoughts? Kinda out of it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[SweetAndLow]

What motherboard?

 

[bmac6996]

The original Lenovo TS140 Motherboard

 

[BigDave]

Please see my signature for the best way to ask for help.
That being said...
I have experienced a panic after install when I neglected to pull the flash drive with the install iso from the port
before reboot AND when pulling the flash drive too early during install. Have you set the boot config in the BIOS/UEFI
of the motherboard?
Without knowing more about how you went about the procedure for install, we can only guess...

 

[bmac6996]

The installation was typical. Nothing unusual and no errors during install. Install fine and prompted me to reboot when it was successful. I did not remove the thumb drive until I hit shutdown, waited for the PC to be off and then removed it. Turned on the pc and the only boot device there was the only thumb drive with the new install. It booted from the USB and it showed the boot up sequence from freenas and then eventually errored out with the picture attached.

 

[BigDave]

Look in your manual and find out which USB ports are USB0 and USB1 and use those
two ports for the flash drives and then choose another port for the keyboard.
I've found this does sometimes make a difference...
Other than that, I'm gonna guess the install is pooched (despite your efforts to the contrary).
Post your results if you find a solution, so others can benefit. Good luck!

 

[killer23d]

Call me old school, all my FreeNAS installs are from DVD. I download the ISO from the site, verify the MD5, then burn to a disc with IMGBurn with verify option checked. I then use a USB DVD drive to install.

Did you update to BIOS? Try to update it again using the recovery method.

I have a TS140 with the i3-4130 CPU, it will just install with the default BIOS settings. From what I can guess, there must be something wrong with the hardware.

The first step you want is to run a full diag with the ThinkServer Diagnostic: http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/pro...-servers/thinkserver-ts140/downloads/DS036914

If everything is good, then you will want to strip the machines to bare minimum and attempt to isolate the fault. Meaning 1x RAM, 1x CPU, no HDD etc and see if FreeNas will even boot.

Often times in my life repairing machines, the CPU could be faulty as now they have the GPU on there as well. Good luck.

 

[bmac6996]

I have a burner but I don't have any blank media to burn to. Gave those all up a while ago.. lol.. I can try to get some later and try that.

In the mean time, I can remove everything except the 1 stick of ram, processor and MB and see if it works. If that doesn't work, I'll run diags for the hell of it.

But I'm kind of skeptical just because this worked fine with version 9.2.1.9, ESXi and Virtualizing 9.3, and installed windows 7 and running it for a day without any hicups. I know 9.3 is picky and I'm not the only one with this weird issue for installation.

 

[Ericloewe]

It's odd, because people have reported success with these servers.

Try clearing the BIOS settings. Just wipe everything to hell.

As an aside, I just started thinking why the hell BIOS settings aren't kept in flash or EEPROM - yeah, the battery has to stay because of the RTC, but adding a bit of SRAM to store some configs seems expensive.

 

[bmac6996]

So did a bios upgrade which wiped my settings.. had to reload default settings.

https://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/thinkservers/bios_ts140-240-440-540_fbktb3a_dos.zip

B3A is the BIOS is the version I used.

Reinstall FreeNAS and same issue. :/

I agree, TS140 is a popular server people have bought and install, but I don't see any posts about 9.3 install issues which is bad for me cause that means i'm the "unique" person with this issue.

 

[Ericloewe]

Try a different USB keyboard - PS2 would be even better, if a port is available.

 

[Robert Smith]

One of the USB 3.0 ports on the back can be switched into a special compatibility mode in the BIOS. I remember having to do that for something ESXi related. Maybe it will help in this case too…

 

[bmac6996]

Try a different USB keyboard - PS2 would be even better, if a port is available.

Tried a different usb keyboard.. no dice.

One of the USB 3.0 ports on the back can be switched into a special compatibility mode in the BIOS. I remember having to do that for something ESXi related. Maybe it will help in this case too…

the only options for USB is to disable the front and/or back USBs and then there is legacy mode. Legacy mode has to be on for it to reconize my usb thumb drive in the 2.0 port. I disbled all USB ports except the 2 usb 2.0 ports. Still nothing.

So far, thanks to all the ideas.

 

[Robert Smith]

Tried a different usb keyboard.. no dice.
the only options for USB is to disable the front and/or back USBs and then there is legacy mode. Legacy mode has to be on for it to reconize my usb thumb drive in the 2.0 port. I disbled all USB ports except the 2 usb 2.0 ports. Still nothing.

Under “Devices – USB Setup” find the “USB Debug Support” setting. Changing it from “Disabled” to “Enabled” converts the USB Port 6 to USB 2.0.

 

[bmac6996]

Yep saw this option. What should go into that port? The installation usb drive or the usb drive that freenas will get installed to?

 

[Robert Smith]

Put one of your USB sticks with already installed FreeNAS in there. And try booting again to see if you still get that error when debug support is enabled.

 

[Robert Smith]

The installation USB drive should be removed when you are booting into an already installed FreeNAS.

 

[bmac6996]

So SOB. Found the issue.

So when I did a fresh install of Freenas to my a thumb drive, I left two internal hard drives connected to the mobo. One held my dataset from ESXi and the other hard drive should of been "blank". Both were not apart of the boot process, so it shouldn't of interfered with the boot sequence and been bypass when Freenas was booting.

Nothing was working, so it got to the point out of pure frustration I started literally disabling everything in the BIOS; ethernet; serial port, SATA adapter, CPU Hyperthreading, VT-X, all of it. Then finally it actually booted. From there, I slowly turned each feature in the BIOS on, one by one. When I got to the part in enabling my SATA adapter and rebooted into FreeNas, then the problem reappeared.

Narrowed it down to the hard drives. I disconnected disk 2 and left disk 1 in place, and FreeNAS booted. Flipped it, leaving disk 2 in place and disk 1 is now disconnected; FreeNas failed.

I took that hard drive out and checked it out in another machine with Windows and disk manager show it as formated and blank with all hard drive space being free. Checked it with Diskpart and that showed it having a GPT partition. So I did a "clean" on the hard drive and put it back into the FreeNas box, restored BIOS defaults and reinstalled FreeNas with hard drives in it's original place and now FreeNAS came up with no failures.

Wonder what FreeNAS was checking that would make it fail and unable to mount boot during the boot process?

Thanks to all who helped. (Now I would like to get that time back spent from spinning my head for days now lol)

 

[Robert Smith]

Oh, that makes sense. Whatever OS was installed on that disk was booting instead of FreeNAS, as the boot manager on the USB stick decided that is where you wanted to boot from.