[solved] Unable to boot with 9.10 (HP Microserver)

[Henry78]

Hello everybody!

I face a rather strange issue and seek your ideas what might be the cuprit. I recently upgraded my installation for freenas 9.3 to 9.10. Everything looked fine, until the system failed to reboot and ended up in the grub rescue shell. The error is "attempt to read or write outside of disk 'hd0'".

I tried various things and googled it, but nothing helped. Today I decided to do a new install. The funny thing is: I'm not able to boot from a 9.10 installation media, but am able to boot 9.3. Both time I boot from external USB and both times the boot works on another system. But booting 9.10 installation ISO failed on my HP Microserver.

I looked up the changes in the documentation, but can't figure out what change broke the boot on my HP Microserver. Any ideas?

Any help is very appreciated.

 

[Ericloewe]

That's weird.

What release of 9.10 are you trying? The latest?

 

[Tim1962]

I can't help especially except to say my 9.3 to 9.10 on an HP microserver went fine... Worth continuing therefore Good luck

 

[Henry78]

Sorry guys. But this has nothing to do with 9.3 or 9.10 or freenas at all. Because a 9.10 stick (which I tested on another system) also doesn't boot the Microserver. In fact none of my USB-sticks (including an Ubuntu installation image) boots. Grub always fails with "attempt to read or write outside of hd0"

I'm pretty clueless now. Maybe an Microserver owner experienced something similar?

 

[Henry78]

Something similar happend before, see this thread.

 

[Henry78]

After reading about Sandisk failing to boot in the HP forums (where this post led me), I tried an Non-Sandisk USB-Key. And now the sysems boots. I have tried different USB-sticks during problem analysis, but all of them are Sandisk 32GB. I'm glad I get the installer to boot, but I'm still puzzled:

I can't remember which USB-Stick I used to install, but I installed FreeNAS to a Sandisk Extreme 32 GB connected to the Microservers internal USB port. And while running 9.3 I bootet the system several times. So there *are* cases the Sandisk USB is booting. And after the upgrade to 9.10 neither the internal stick, nor two other Sandisk boot the system any more.

Am I going crazy?

 

[diskdiddler]

Is your build installed to HDD or a stick? Are you saying you booted from USB to install it, or you boot from USB to use it?

 

[Henry78]

I installed from external USB to internal USB.

Sadly I don't believe anybody here can help me out. Except somebody facing the same problem (Microserver and not-booting psticks, espeically Sandisk Exreme 32 GB).

My next step is to buy a new USB-stick and transfer my installation over (I'll try dd). I'll keep you posted, if it works.

 

[Henry78]

Freenas is up and running again. I used one of the booting USB-Sticks and did an Upgrade. Now the system boots from internal USB (yes that's a Sandisk Extreme). I've no clue why it works this time and failed to boot after my last attemt to "just reinstall freenas".

So it's solved, thak you all for you input!

 

[diskdiddler]

So to clarify, you booted into 9.3 and upgraded to 9.10 and it worked on a Microserver?
I'll be doing this in a few months when the bugs are kinked out.

I'd love to know if there's any significant performance changes or system requirements (I'm close to my limits with 6x5TB disks and 8GB memory)

 

[Henry78]

Yes, that worked. Selected the new train from an 9.3 install and it updated. Besides of the boot issue, which most probably won't affect you, everything worked very well. In case you face the boot issue, just perpare a USB stick with 9.10, boot from it and find your way through the menu to upgrade your existing installation, and your fine.