UEFI boot from CD/USB installation image fails

[microserf]

A bit of an odd problem that I haven't done a deep dive into yet: UEFI booting the FreeNAS 11.2/3-X installer from CD or USB fails with the message "Failed to find bootable partition".

Hardware:

Dell PowerEdge R330​

BIOS v2.7.1​

Lifecycle Controller v2.70.70.70 Build 138​

iDRAC v2.70.70.70 Build 45​

Internal SATA DVD-RW​

Dell PERC H330 in HBA mode​

No backplane drives, no internal USB drive, no internal SD cards​

-or- using a single SATA drive​

-or- using a single SAS drive​

-or- using an internal SD card​

11.2-U7 CD boot error message:

Code:

EFI version: 2.40
EFI Firmware: Dell Inc. (rev 263.513)

FreeBSD/amd64 EFI loader, Revision 1.1
(Mon Nov 18 22:44:25 UTC 2019 root@nemesis) 
Load Path: \EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI
Load Device: PciRoot (0x0) /Pci (0x17,0x0) /Sata (0x4,0x0,0x0) /CDROM (0x1)
BootCurrent: 0003
BootOrder: 0002 0003[*]
Failed to find bootable partition

Changing the boot order to place the DVD-RW first instead of a one-shot boot change results in:

Code:

BootCurrent: 0003
BootOrder: 0003[*] 0002

as expected.

11.3-BETA1 DVD boot error message:

Code:

Consoles: EFI console
FreeBSD/amd64 EFI loader, Revision 1.1
(Mon Nov  4 19:41:45 UTC 2019 root@nemesis)

Command line arguments: loader.efi
EFI version: 2.40
EFI Firmware: Dell Inc. (rev 263.513)
Load Path: \EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI
Load Device: PciRoot (0x0) /Pci (0x17,0x0) /Sata (0x4,0x0,0x0) /CDROM (0x1)
BootCurrent: 0003
BootOrder: 0002 0003[*]
Failed to find bootable partition

Booting the FreeNAS 11.2-(RELEASE, U6, U7) installer in BIOS boot mode works fine as does setting the FreeNAS boot selection to UEFI during installation. When rebooting after install, changing the boot mode to UEFI and starting the newly installed system works fine.

Booting the FreeNAS 11.1-U6 installer in UEFI mode works fine. Setting the FreeNAS boot selection to UEFI during installation and rebooting into FreeNAS using UEFI works fine.

UEFI booting the FreeNAS 11.1-U6 installation and updating to 11.2-U7 works fine.

I did a few searches but the results were all related to failures UEFI booting an installed system or lack of motherboard support. Any suggestions, hints, or 11.1-11.2 loader change details appreciated. It looks like I'll be starting here: boot(8), uefi(8)

 

[G8One2]

I've done it through the IPMI and virtual media on my supermicro server. UEFI booting was problematic, hit or miss for me also. If you have IPMI, try the install that way.

 

[pschatz100]

On my older Supermicro X9SCM system, UEFI worked OK when booting from a flash drive, but I had to change to BIOS (legacy) boot when I reconfigured the system to boot from SSD. This was two years ago, and it has been working fine ever since. At the time, I had to create the boot image for BIOS (legacy) boot AND I had to set the bios in the motherboard for BIOS boot.

I don't understand what your question is.

 

[microserf]

If you have IPMI, try the install that way.

I hadn't considered that as a possible workaround. The server has an Enterprise license so IPMI is available in iDRAC. I'll give it a try.

 

[microserf]

I don't understand what your question is.

How do I UEFI boot FreeNAS installation images created after 11.1-U6 on this machine? :)

The server UEFI boots the 11.1-U6 installation media as well as any installed OS. It fails when UEFI booting 11.2-X and 11.3-BETA1 installation media. There are workarounds. For now. Those workarounds may have OS and software default configuration implications. Since this system is still being set up, I'm trying to figure out what to do down the road if/when a clean install is necessary.

 

[pschatz100]

How do I UEFI boot FreeNAS installation images created after 11.1-U6 on this machine? :)

The server UEFI boots the 11.1-U6 installation media as well as any installed OS. It fails when UEFI booting 11.2-X and 11.3-BETA1 installation media. There are workarounds. For now. Those workarounds may have OS and software default configuration implications. Since this system is still being set up, I'm trying to figure out what to do down the road if/when a clean install is necessary.

The way FreeNAS boots was changed with 11.2. If your system doesn't like booting FreeNAS using UEFI, why don't you set up your device for BIOS boot? That would probably work OK.

As I commented in an earlier post, older machines are sometimes rather fussy about the devices that will UEFI boot.