SOLVED Unable to boot FreeNAS on SSD

KrisBee

Wizard
Joined
Mar 20, 2017
Messages
1,288
@obomoboe Did you fix your problem? You said you have "3 data disks and SSDs attached to the system". So if you have one hhd bay free and are still stuck, then your SSD with FN should boot if placed in the first left most hard drive bay with the B120i set to AHCI. To be safe you could invest in adaptor, but with care it be fitted without one.

Otherwise, were you sing internal or externl usb port and was port and usb stock both USB2? Please post your grub.cfg.
 

RiBeneke

Dabbler
Joined
Nov 18, 2013
Messages
37
Have just concluded a many-hour fight with our HP ProLiant ML310e Gen8 v2.
It had been running FreeNAS for many years, but needed a fresh install on new media.
During attempted install I had problems with bad install CDs, dirty lenses on CD readers, incorrect format on USB sticks,
and in the process of trying to find a solution I reset the BIOS of the HP to factory defaults. Not clever.

Then attempted install from USB would not recognise a USB plugged anywhere.
Attempted install from CD would start but quickly halt with the message
Can't work out which disk we are booting from.
Guessed BIOS device 0x80 not found by probes, default to ... Can't load 'kernel' ...

I suspected a faulty CD again since it was only reading the first sector.

Then I worked out that the solution was to reverse most of the BIOS changes. Specifically set the following :
System Options | USB Options | USB Port Controller Routing | USB 2.0 Controller
System Options | SATA Controller Options | Embedded SATA Configuration | Enable SATA Legacy Support
(the embedded SATA RAID controller must be disabled)
System Options | SATA Controller Options | Enable Write Cache | Disabled
PCI Device Enable/Disable | Embedded SATA Controller 1 | Enable
PCI Device Enable/Disable | Embedded SATA Controller 2 | Enable
PCI Device Enable/Disable | HP Dynamic Smart Array Accelerator Manager | Disable

For us a successful Standard Boot Order (IPL) setting was
1-CD 2-FloppyA (does not exist) 3-USBDriveKeyC (socket on the motherboard) 4-HarddriveC 5-Ethernet

I installed FreeNAS to a 32 GB SanDisk USB2 on the motherboard socket. Joy after all the grief.
Removed CD disk from the reader, left boot order unchanged, but then set BIOS to
System Options | SATA Controller Options | Embedded SATA Configuration | Enable SATA AHCI Support

Hope this helps someone.
 

JaimieV

Guru
Joined
Oct 12, 2012
Messages
742
I installed FreeNAS to a 32 GB SanDisk USB2 on the motherboard socket. Joy after all the grief.

Before celebrating too hard, you may find that FreeNAS 11 is too large to startup reliably from a USB2 stick. If you get occasions after a reboot where the GUI is not present or unresponsive, you'll probably find "middlewared - timed out" messages on the console. FreeNAS 9 didn't have any trouble with it.
 
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