Trouble installing FreeNAS on Dell Dimension 8250

[Don Hahl]

I am a very new user to anything other than windows and have been reading how to take an old server and make it a NAS just to store and backup data for a couple of my pcs. My Dell Dimension 8250 has only 512K RAM. Initially I will connect an external hard drive (1T) to the Dell. I burned a CD for both version 8 and 9 and tried loading it on my dell Desktop and got to the same place where I have this continuous message just before I get to the simple option screen. The boot process seems to be going along just fine then the message below keeps flashing.
/dev/da0 /dev/da0s1 /dev/cd0 /dev/cd1g_vfs_done();cd1[READ(offset=32768, length =2048)]error=6
I tried booting FreeNAS on my pc and was able to get to the simple option screen. What am I doing wrong or should I junk the 8250?
Thanks, Don

 

[gpsguy]

With just 512k of RAM you'll need to go back to DOS 3,1 . Even 512Mb is not enough RAM for FreeNAS. You'd need 2Gb at a minimum for UFS and at least 8Gb for ZFS.

You might be able to use NAS4free but you need to visit their website for more information. See www.nas4free.org


Sent from my phone

 

[Don Hahl]

Thanks for the advice. I was able to install NAS4free and run it off of my hard drive and partition the rest of the hard drive as data. I used the following link that went though step by step instructions to set up access it it worked: http://www.anotherwindowsblog.com/2...onfiguring-nas4free-on-a-windows-network.html. I then tried to add another 1TB Seagate Hard drive. I added the disk fine, then formatted the disk but when I tried to Mount it I got the following error message.
The following input errors were detected:

• Wrong partition type or partition number.
• /dev/da0s2: Can't get UFS ID.
  dumpfs: /dev/da0s2: could not find special device

The status of my 2 disk drives are:
Status|Disks
Disk Size Description Device model Serial number File system I/O statistics Temperature Status
ada0 76294MB Dell Dimension Hard Drive IC35L080AVVA07-0 VNC404A4GW6VAF Unknown or unformatted 18.38 KiB/t, 0 tps, 0.00 MiB/s 35 °C ONLINE
da0 1430800MB 1 Terabyte hard drive Seagate ST1500LM003-9YH148 Z110FLC9 UFS 0.88 KiB/t, 0 tps, 0.00 MiB/s 25 °C ONLINE

Question: Should the partition number for the Seagate drive be the same as the Dell Dimension hard drive (2) or the next number? I have tried both ways and that did not work. Any suggestions as to how to fix this would be appreciated.
I feel I am getting way too deep into this for a novice.
Thanks, Don

 

[gpsguy]

Unfortunately, we can't help you here. you'll need to visit the nas4free forum. These are 2 different projects - imagine asking for Ubuntu help on a SuSE Forum.

I'm glad to hear that you were successful in getting started with a working operating system.


Sent from my phone

 

[Yatti420]

You mean 512mb.. Interesting system to attempt with.. Does it have ECC RDRam? UFS if you can even manage to get it running with nas4free or freenas 8/9.. 2gb max? 4gb? The dimension 8200 boards I think were ones that could do ECC or non-ecc not sure if that was an rdram thing..

I got an 8200 at my sisters.. I want it back just to have some older system around with RDRAM..

After checking the specs it appears the max is 2gb..
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080303222017AAWbGfV

If you don't have the ram laying around it can be a hassle to upgrade.. Definitely not economical..

 

[DrKK]

Don:

To echo what has already been said, 512MB of RAM is vastly, vastly, vastly too low for FreeNAS to be of any use to you. NAS4Free may, or may not, allow a reasonable install/system with this hardware. FreeNAS is not intended to repurpose older, slower hardware into a NAS. Quite the opposite, actually--it is intended to take new, server-class hardware and make a professional grade network storage system.

Unfortunately, on this forum, we just don't have any expertise in NAS4Free. The good news is that the NAS4Free people have a forum. It may, or may not, be as responsive as ours.

Happy hunting, sir.