Booting Freezes at Loading bzroot

[mjdamato]

I am trying to set up UnRAID for the first time and am running into many issues. After several hours of trying different USB keys and trying different BIOS configurations, I have finally gotten the system to load the boot menu. No matter whichj option I select, it take 30-60 seconds to get through loading bzimage (don't know if that is normal), but then it hangs on loading bzroot. I have even left it for a couple of hours without error or progress.

 

I found a couple of very old posts here and here with a similar problem and have attempted solutions proposed therein. Still no luck. I am looking for any advice to resolve the problem and can provide any additional details needed.

 

Versions attempted: 6.8.3 and 6.8.2

 

Things I have tried:

1. Build the USB key both from the USB creator and manually (the manual method is the only one that worked to get to the boot menu) 
2. Removed everything not needed to boot: just the video card and one memory module.
3. Tried different memory modules by themselves.
4. Tried a different video card
5. Changed speed of USB from "High Speed" to "Full Speed"
6. Tried disabling or enabling Serial Port in BIOS
7. Disabled unneeded BIOS features: Sound, Serial Port, 1394, etc.
8. Changed syslinux.cfg to "append initrd=/bzroot acpi=off nolapic noapic" (added part in bold as recommended in one fo the above posts)

 

The old post mentions getting a newer copy of syslinux.exe and running "syslinux -ma d:" on the USB key. I was able to get the most recent version (v6.03) of that file and dropped it onto the USB key, but, I'm not sure how to execute that command on the file. Although, even with just copying the file, the results are the same.

 

Any advice or direction would be greatly appreciated!

 

System Specs:

• Mobo: ASUS Sabertooth X58
• CPU: Core i-7-950
• Memory: 1 x 2BG G.SKILL DDR3 1600 (Have 6 modules, but only running one till I can get the system to boot)
• Video: EVGA GTX 770 (Yes overkill, but it was what is in the PC). Also tried an older 9600 GT.
• HDs: Disconnected all until I can get it to boot

 

[Hoopster]

25 minutes ago, mjdamato said:

but then it hangs on loading bzroot.

When that happened to me it was because a BIOS/Linux kernel update caused my system to no longer boot in legacy mode.  I had to configure the BIOS and unRAID flash drive for UEFI boot and all was well; no more stuck at loading bzroot.

 

The quickest way to configure your flash drive for UEFI boot is to rename the EFI- folder to EFI (remove the trailing "-" character).

 

In the BIOS, make sure the boot device is UEFI:{name of flash drive}

 

If you are already booting UEFI, reverse this and perhaps your system needs to boot in legacy mode instead.

Edited January 20, 2021 by Hoopster

[ich777]

1 hour ago, mjdamato said:

Changed speed of USB from "High Speed" to "Full Speed"

Have you tried another USB port?

Also please try a USB2.0 port if you have pluged it in a USB3.0+ port.

[mjdamato]

Thank you both for the quick responses.

59 minutes ago, ich777 said:

Have you tried another USB port?

Also please try a USB2.0 port if you have pluged it in a USB3.0+ port.

Unless I am missing something, this board does not support UEFI. It's running an AMI BIOS. There are no options I can find to boot in Legacy or UEFI (or anything that would hint at such options). I have confirmed the folder in the flash drive is named "EFI-" (with the minus symbol) which should be correct for this board. But, just out of desperation, I removed it and tried again. Same results.

 

57 minutes ago, ich777 said:

Have you tried another USB port?

Also please try a USB2.0 port if you have pluged it in a USB3.0+ port.

Yes. I've tried multiple USB ports and avoided the USB3.0 ports due to documented incompatibilities with those (I even have USB3.0 support disabled)

 

At this point, I think I'm going to try an older system I have lying around. It doesn't have as much memory, CPU or SATA ports as this one - but is probably sufficient for my needs. I would even consider building a new budget system, but I wouldn't want to run into similar problems where I can't even get it to boot.

[mjdamato]

Well, here's sort of an update. After doing other things I went back to the PC and realized I had left it running. I pressed the spacebar to make the monitor come out of sleep and lo and behold it completed the booting process! Well, it was in the non-GUI mode and I had never seen what it "should" look like. But, it was asking for login credentials. I entered in root to see that it appeared to be working. I then rebooted the PC and chose the GUI boot mode. I let it sit at loading bzroot for 10-15 minutes before deciding to reboot again in non-GUI mode. I again waited 10-15 minutes with it never passing loading bzroot. So, it seems it will progress past that point either sometimes or after a very long time. I am leaving it running right now. But, if it is going to take this long to boot on this machine, that will be a non starter.

[Hoopster]

25 minutes ago, mjdamato said:

if it is going to take this long to boot on this machine, that will be a non starter.

Something is messed up somewhere. 

 

My servers boot in less than 2 minutes (more like 1:20) from the time the power button is pressed or a reboot is initiated to sitting at the login screen to access the GUI.  There is nothing you need to do while it boots until the login screen appears.  Of course, if you want a different selection from the boot menu other than the default (whatever you have that set to), you can do that, but after a few seconds of no input it will proceed with the default option.

 

You might try posting your diagnostics; Tools --> Diagnostics from the GUI, so someone can look at your syslog and system configuration information to see if any clues can be found.