Not about FreeNAS-11.2-RC2 per se

[solarisguy]

Yesterday evening, I had a couple of hours to do whatever I wanted with a blank laptop (i5-8250U, 24GB, SSD 480GB).

Thus I tried FreeNAS-11.2-RC2. The new interface appears to be workable, so if 11.3 lands shortly, 2019 might see me deploying FreeNAS.

However, I had an unusual experience, before I have touched that laptop. Here are my steps.

1. Downloaded FreeNAS-11.2-RC2.iso to a Windows 7x64 PC (the hardware is more than 7 years old).
2. sha256sum checks out.
3. Downloaded Rufus 3.3.
4. Wrote FreeNAS-11.2-RC2 into an oldish 8GB USB memory that was just around.
5. Blue Screen of Death.
6. Blame game. Is Rufus the guilty party? Was I too cheap?
7. Let's see what was written => Blue Screen of Death, instantly anytime after the USB memory is being inserted.
8. OK, it was my error in judgment then. The USB memory goes to garbage (can you e-cycle them?).
9. Let's try again with a modern, rarely used, 32GB USB3 => Blue Screen of Death, immediately after Rufus had finished.
10. And again a Blue Screen of Death at will, regardless whether I use any of USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 ports (they are attached to separate hardware controllers).
11. sha256sum still checks out...
12. A family laptop with Windows 10x64 has no problems reading either USB memory.

I had successfully used 8GB (recovered from a bin...) as my installation media, and installed to 32GB.

So if something like the above happens to anyone else running Windows 7, they would know that they are not alone.

 

[Ericloewe]

There have been several reports lately of Rufus seriously getting things wrong. Not just with FreeNAS. Some have speculated that it's an NTFS bug that causes the actual BSoD, but that would require Rufus to be seriously brain-dead.

So, it's best to use a different tool, like win32diskimager or whatever it's called.

 

[wblock]

In step #4, you *must* enable "DD mode" with Rufus.