newbie... all the gear no idea

[citrus]

Hi,

So I bought one of these at xmas

HP PROLIANT N54L 1P 2GB-U INT SATA 250GB 1Y

On the advice of a really good tech guy at work .. I havent got round to buying the extra storage yet (or clearly installing anything else on it) but wanted to get things going with the onboard 250gb drive to build confidence in myself mainly !

I have trawled through the youtube and forum links (which are excellent but pretty in depth for idiots like me) ..one thing I gleaned was that I needed to download the NAS iso to a (4gb) usb stick so chose the latest one

FreeNAS-9.2.1.2-RELEASE-x64.iso i686: 64-bit x64 ISA

Now taking the advice from here
http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Installing_and_Upgrading_FreeNAS
Used a 4gb usb stick and plugged that in along with keyboard/screen etc etc

Booted up and nothing .. . screen doesn't display anything.
Was rather hoping that the iso image on the usb stick would plug and play and the screen would give me some sort of command line but I am missing a step ...(and cant find that link on web) ..
I think the nas server looks fine .. blue light on the front and the usb drive has lit up like it can be read and the ethernet cable is in the router and the green light is flashing in the back of the NAS box.
I checked my router and it has not appeared as one of the wired devices ...but then I guess its a brand new brick with no OS .. and just a 4gb usb stick stuck in it !
Any ideas ...on the missing step ?
Yours not in networking!

Chris

 

[survive]

Hi Chris,

First thing I would do confirm that it boots at all.

Got a USB CD-ROM? Use that to install from a proper burned CD to the key. Alternatively you can install the boot image on any PC & move the boot key over to the FreeNAS box when the install prompts you to shutdown. Where you install FreeNAS doesn't matter as the system configures itself when it boots. I've always had bad luck doing anything other than installing from a proper burned CD, so I always recommend spending the fraction of a dollar it takes to burn a disc & do it the old fashioned way.

I hate seeing these sorts of posts because it sucks to spend the first couple of hours with a new system just trying to figure out how to make it boot!

-Will

 

[citrus]

very kind Will good of you to give me a lift up..

..well when i look at this hp proliant box ... there isnt a cd tray tho .. there are 4 trays for the hard disks and 4 usb slots on the front ...

so I am stuck with a usb stick ..no ?

(there is a cd like window .. but turns out from the install docs that this is the optical disc drive slot .. that needs to be bought and installed !)

 

[citrus]

do you suggest that i test my usb iso stick on another machine .. so see if it is bootable ?

 

[Starpulkka]

Welcome to Freenas forums.
Im guessing that you did prepare usb stick wrong. I would get RELEASE-x64.img.xz instead of iso and then use 7-zip and Win32diskimager
as http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Burning_an_IMG_File suggests. If it boots perhaps then i would order 2x8gb ecc memorys and more harddrives on it. Then i would put memorytests and hdd tests for a two weeks and after then i would take it for home use. (if it not boot, you might have check on hp bios is usb stick on boot list)

 

[cyberjock]

You don't put the ISO on the USB stick. The ISO is for making a CD-ROM. And as Starpulkka said, the .img.xz can be used to make the USB stick directly. Frankly, the fact that, despite using the manual, you missed this very basic concept kind of tells me you have serious learning pains ahead. The reason being that if you read that section of the manual it makes no mention of ever putting an ISO on a USB stick. Anyone familiar with ISOs should also realize the very fundamental concept that you don't put it on a USB stick.

 

[gpsguy]

Assuming you plan to use ZFS, you'll need more RAM.

Buy 8Gb sticks of ECC RAM. I'm running 16Gb in my N54L.

I havent got round to buying the extra storage yet (or clearly installing anything else on it)

 

[citrus]

Welcome to Freenas forums.
Im guessing that you did prepare usb stick wrong. I would get RELEASE-x64.img.xz instead of iso and then use 7-zip and Win32diskimager
as http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Burning_an_IMG_File suggests. If it boots perhaps then i would order 2x8gb ecc memorys and more harddrives on it. Then i would put memorytests and hdd tests for a two weeks and after then i would take it for home use. (if it not boot, you might have check on hp bios is usb stick on boot list)

Starpulkka>

Spot on .. don't do enough of this tbh ... but clearly missed the burning and img file key page ...(like and idiot).

(as cyberjock cruelly but accurately described .. "serious learning pains ahead" ....but also behind !)

so thanks to your direction and link I now have the utils and have created the bootable 4gb usb stick ...

Now to get the screen working on this damn hp device ...

I found this link that looked like my problem

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/ProLia...G7-N54L-problem-no-display/m-p/6356035#M20270

Retested the tested cable and it was flaky so found a more reliable cable and voila.

The box now starts up and displays the console !!

Thanks for your comments folks ... I am now on my way :)