Unable to install on Mac Pro

[rcx456]

Hi, I have a 2008 Mac Pro server onto which I want to install FreeNAS. I downloaded FreeNAS, burnt the ISO to a DVD.

I read that holding the C key when a Mac boots up boots into the optical disc, but holding C did nothing.

So I read online that I can go to System Preferences to select a default bootup disk, I did that and selected the FreeNAS disc. I booted up, I could hear the optical drive spinning and then it stopped and I get the apple logo, sounds of the hard drives doing something, and the following on the screen: http://youtu.be/83RcWzd_jsk

 

[diedrichg]

FreeNAS lives on a USB thumb drive, SATA SSD or SATADOM. The ISO is "burnt" to one of these devices as a bootable drive and then your computer boots into it as set by your BIOS. It can't live on a DVD as FreeNAS system data must be saved to it.

Please check out the sticky posts in the Help and Support > New to FreeNAS forum and read through the official FreeNAS documentation.

 

[rcx456]

Thanks, now I've read that as of version 9.3 FreeNAS must be installed using the installer. I've prepared a bootable USB and loaded it with the ISO and it boots correctly on my laptop. I used FAT32 as the filesystem.

Now I just can't find how to boot into the USB on the Mac Pro machine. I have never touched a MAC before, the internet says to hold the C key while powering on to boot into USB but that doesn't change anything. Could it be because I need to have an Apple keyboard plugged in? I'm using a generic USB keyboard.

 

[adrianwi]

My guess is that the internet says to hold down the "option" key when booting the Mac.

Not sure how you get this on a non-Apple keyboard.

 

[rcx456]

Yup the option key gives more options than the C key. So maybe I need an Apple keyboard. I've asked on the Apple forum as well.

 

[adrianwi]

Apparently the "alt" key should work fine > http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-option-key-from-an-non-apple-keyboard.373139/

 

[rcx456]

Thanks, Left-ALT worked fine and I could boot back into the HDD so at least the machine is back to how it was. But the bootable FreeNAS USB does not appear as a boot option. I'm told the Mac environment is different so I need to check if FreeNAS can even run on a Mac.

 

[rogerh]

Contrary to the suggestion above, if you can boot from the CD drive you should be able to boot into the FreeNAS installer ISO. Then it will be a matter of installing into the working boot medium which cannot be a CD, and this will not be very useful if you can't see the boot medium as a boot device. You could try to install to an SSD or HDD if there is a place in a Mac Pro to put one, but whether FreeNAS will actually run I have no idea.

 

[anodos]

Thanks, Left-ALT worked fine and I could boot back into the HDD so at least the machine is back to how it was. But the bootable FreeNAS USB does not appear as a boot option. I'm told the Mac environment is different so I need to check if FreeNAS can even run on a Mac.

I have a 2007 macbook. EFI support for booting from USB on it is marginal. Your best bet may be to use another system to install FreeNAS on a satadom or other sata drive, then put in in the mac. Once you have done this, boot from an OSX CD and bless the correct SATA device / partition.

 

[rcx456]

Ok so I've now got a bootable USB stick, it boots on my laptop but not my desktop and I need it to boot off my desktop. So all works well on laptop but on desktop I get "Grub loading. Welcome to GRUB. Error: Incompatible license. Entering rescure mode..."

 

[danb35]

You may or may not be able to get FreeNAS 9.3 to boot at all, but even if you did, is the system otherwise appropriate? Adequate RAM, ECC, CPU, etc.? I understand the appeal of repurposing old hardware, but 7 years is kind of old.

 

[rcx456]

The system is reasonable, 64-bit, 4gb RAM. Is should explain thatt he "Incompatible license" error is on an uptodate laptop. It's been suggested to boot the installer on a modern laptop, install onto a disk, and move the disk to the Mac. Dunno if that will work.

 

[danb35]

For 9.3, 4 GB of RAM is not "reasonable"; it's half of the minimum requirement. It will likely boot and run, but there seems to be a significant risk of pool corruption and other problems with less than 8 GB of RAM.

Under normal circumstances (i.e., with typical, modern PC hardware), it's perfectly fine to run the installer on one machine, remove the disk/SSD/DOM/USB stick, move it to another machine, and boot from it. The Mac seems to do things differently wrt the boot process, though, so this may not work.