Ok, I’m a total unRaid noob.  I’m running an old machine as a file server with windows 7.  I’d like to switch it to an unRaid box.  I didn’t find my motherboard in the hardware compatibility section of the wiki.  So I did the compatibility test. I downloaded the previous stable ver - unRAID Server version 4.6 AiO – and put it on an old flash drive. changed the boot order in my bios and boot it up.  it found the USB started to load unRaid.  And then boom.  Got the attached error screen.

 

Here’s the specs on the tower

MOTHERBOARD

asus p5gd1-vm

VIDEO CARD

ati radeon x550 256mb pcie

CPU

p4 3.0ghz 531 1mb 800fsb lga775

CASE

alienware tower

POWER

480w 1.3 psu dc 441/446

RAM

Corsair Value Select 4Gb (4 sticks) PC3200 DDR 400MHz Memory

 

is there a way to figure out what piece of hardware in the system is causing the problem?

Since that motherboard has integrated graphics you could pull out the ATI video card and try with the motherboard graphics.

 

Just a thought.

 

Stephen

 

You might also try:

 

1. a different flash drive or USB port, I seem to recall having a problem with the first flash drive I tried

 

2. a different NIC card, if you have a PCI network card put it in, disable the on-board LAN in the BIOS and try again.  There are a few ASUS motherboards that use NICs that the unRAID package does not have drivers for.

 

3. once you get to the screen that asks if you want to boot into unRAID or run a memory test, select the memory test option and let it run for a few hours

 

Regards,

 

Stephen

Sweet! well part of the way there.  i used a proper Sandisk Cruzer USB and plugged it into the port in the back of the tower.

"Tower Login:" came up.  but i can't reach //tower/ in a browser. and i tried to login.  typed "root"  and then 'ifconfig' to get the ip address but no list comes up.  and ideas? oh and i don't have a NIC card. still using the onboard.

Insert Quote

Sweet! well part of the way there.  i used a proper Sandisk Cruzer USB and plugged it into the port in the back of the tower.

"Tower Login:" came up.

 

That would be on the unraid box right?

 

but i can't reach //tower/ in a browser. and i tried to login.  typed "root"  and then 'ifconfig' to get the ip address but no list comes up.  and ideas?

 

that would be on another machine on the network right?

 

What is the output of ifconfig on the unraid box after you login as root?

What is the output of

lspci

Do you know the network chip on that motherboard?

If it doesn't have a ip address they you may have to try another network card.

lspci is not installed by default. It requires the pci utils package (available via unmenu).

a lot of suggestions so let me recap. 

yes "tower login" was on the unraid box

on a second machine on the same network - //tower can not be reached

after logging in as 'root'

type 'ifconfig' no list no nothing

same with 'lspci' - no list

this is the onboard LAN controller - Intel 10/100 Fast Ethernet LAN controller

the network controllers listed in the recommended builds list a Intel Pro. 

is my network controller the problem?

Do you have a router or switch on your network (or both)?  Connect your unRAID server directly to the router if you can, as a troubleshooting step.

 

If ifconfig returns nothing, then your NIC is not connecting to your network.  It is possible that your ethernet cable is bad, your router/switch is bad, or the NIC itself is bad.  Try this:

1) Power down the unRAID server

2) Pull the flash drive and plug it into another computer

3) Open the flash drive, browse to the config>network.cfg file.

4) Open the file in a linux-compatible text editor (notepad++ on Windows, textedit on Mac, gedit on Linux)

5) Match or replace the contents of the file with the following:

# Generated settings:
USE_DHCP=no
IPADDR=192.168.0.100
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.0.1
DHCP_KEEPRESOLV=
DNS_SERVER1=192.168.0.1
DNS_SERVER2=
DNS_SERVER3=

 

Note: you will likely need to change some of these IP addresses to match your network.  The first one is your desired IP for your server.  It can be anything you like, but make it something easy to remember, and something that is not used by any other device on your network.  The netmask should be correct as it is.  The Gateway is the IP address of your router.  192.168.0.1 is the default of most routers, but not all.  Whatever you enter for the Gateway, duplicate it for DNS Server 1.

 

6) Save and close the network.cfg file

7) Safely remove/eject the flash drive

Plug the flash drive back into the server and boot it up.  The server is now using a Static IP address.  You should be able to access the web page at http://192.168.0.100/main.htm (assuming you are running unRAID version 4.7 - if you are using a Beta, then the address is different).

9) If you still can't access the webpage, try the 'ifconfig' command again at the system console.  It should be broadcasting the above IP address.  If it still isn't, then you may have a hardware problem.

Thanks for the detailed walk through but it didn't work.  changed the IP, made sure no other devices had that IP and still nothing.  in the back of the box the Ethernet port is lit but not blinking.  and i checked my router to see all the devices on the network and nothing shows.

given that this box is already a Frankenstein of parts that are mostly 7 years old now i should probably just start fresh.

 

I’m not giving up that easy.  After searching the forums and finding tarataqa’s post I was inspired. 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=13729.0

 

I don’t have a switch.  The unraid is also a win7 machine and its plugged directly into a Linksys router.  In addition to the above hardware I bought a D-Link DGE-530T 10/100/1000 Gigabit Desktop. i've seen other people use it in their builds. I disabled the onboard lan in the BIOS. I first booted the machine into Win7 to make sure the NIC is working and its fine. And I’m using the same cable so that’s not it.

 

I downloaded the latest version 4.7, did the USB preparation again and added the files. I then proceeded to follow Rajahal’s directions.  Here is what I used

# Generated settings:

USE_DHCP=no

IPADDR=192.168.1.101

NETMASK=255.255.255.0

GATEWAY=192.168.0.1

DHCP_KEEPRESOLV=

DNS_SERVER1=192.168.1.1

DNS_SERVER2=

DNS_SERVER3=

 

I double checked the router ip/gateway and the netmask.  Everything agrees with the router. I booted the unraid, got to tower login, used ‘root’.  Typed ‘ifconfig’.  Nothing returns.  I’m stymied again. Also here is a link to my motherboard

http://usa.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_775/P5GD1VM/

 

and  I’ve attached the syslog

syslog-2011-07-10.txt

Jul 10 12:05:21 Tower ifplugd(eth0)[1260]: ifplugd 0.28 initializing.

Jul 10 12:05:21 Tower ifplugd(eth0)[1260]: Using interface eth0

Jul 10 12:05:21 Tower ifplugd(eth0)[1260]: Initialization complete, link beat not detected.

 

A few stabs in the dark, Try disabling everything you might not need. (serial ports etc)

 

What about

ifconfig -a

Josh

USE_DHCP=no

IPADDR=192.168.1.101

NETMASK=255.255.255.0

GATEWAY=192.168.0.1

DHCP_KEEPRESOLV=

DNS_SERVER1=192.168.1.1

DNS_SERVER2=

DNS_SERVER3=

 

All the numbers in bold need to be the same.  If your router's IP address is 192.168.0.1, then change all the bold numbers to 0.  If the router's IP address is 192.168.1.1, then change all the bold numbers to 1.  I'm pretty sure that will solve your problem, but I'll take a look at your syslog anyway.

 

Edit: Syslog looks normal except for this:

 

Jul 10 12:05:21 Tower kernel: read_file: error 2 opening /boot/config/super.dat
Jul 10 12:05:21 Tower kernel: md: could not read superblock from /boot/config/super.dat
Jul 10 12:05:21 Tower kernel: md: initializing superblock

 

...but I'm not sure what that means.

Well, still no joy.  I fixed lan ip segment (dumb mistake) here is how the Network.cfg file reads

# Generated settings:

USE_DHCP=no

IPADDR=192.168.1.100

NETMASK=255.255.255.0

GATEWAY=192.168.1.1

DHCP_KEEPRESOLV=

DNS_SERVER1=192.168.1.1

DNS_SERVER2=

DNS_SERVER3=

 

 

Also I took out the video card and used the onboard video. Ifconfig still returns nothing.  Ifconfig –a returns the following

 

link encap:Local Loopback

LOOPBACK MTU:16436 Metric:1

RX Packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

and repeats with all zeros

 

I wasn’t much of a hardware guy (still am not) before starting this venture, but ooking closer at my MB specs. and comparing them working builds on the MB comparability table

 

CPU socket  -  LGA 775 -      level 1 and 2

Northbridge   -  915G - TBA on MB compatibility page

Southbridge   -  ICH6 -      TBA on MB compatibility page

 

might it just be that the motherboard will never work?

 

Looks like it's not seeing a network card... is it onboard?  If you have a spare card lying around, you could try using that

Spritzup, I already put in a D-Link DGE-530T (which works fine in Win7) and disabled the onboard lan.

 

In scouring the forum I found this

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2159.msg15880#msg15880

 

now this was a long time ago and it was upgrading from unraid 4.2 to 4.3, but in looking at the posts some of the lines he mentions as problems in the boot process look familiar. ti could be a problem with the way i'm preping the USB.  Just before it says Welcome to unRAID and tower login:, what should it say on the screen??   I might be getting errors there but I don’t know.  

 

Edit: and i'm sure the USB label is UNRAID - 6 letters all cap

Are you still running a 4.x unRAID?

 

Try 5.0.  My machine was always intermittent on startup under 4.x - sometimes it would boot to completion, often it would simply load the basic image files from the usb stick, but then fail to mount the /boot device.  In this condition, there is no network and no custom startup, no unRAID configuration etc - just a raw system with /root on memory disk.

that sounds like it could be it.  i'm running a mem test now.

which 5 beta should i try?  there is an 8 and a 9

that sounds like it could be it.  i'm running a mem test now.

 

Yes - without knowing more about your precise symptoms, it's difficult to be sure, but it would fit.

 

I never did find out exactly what was causing the problem - possibly some race condition on the usb/flash initialisation.  The flash was always available to boot from the BIOS, but once the unRAID images loaded, it was hit and miss whether the flash would be available.  It is quite possible that, with a slight alteration in timings, the flash would always fail to load.  As I understand, 5.0 changes the way in which the drives are recognised - my suspicion is that this is what resolved the issue.

 

which 5 beta should i try?  there is an 8 and a 9

 

I'm currently on 8d, but 9 should be okay.

i'll try that tonight.  also, i ran a mem test last night i got the attached error.  do i have to replace the memory?

i kept it running for a day and a half and this showed up

Not a good thing, looks like your RAM is bad.  You can try different slots, and or the combination of only one stick.

weird, because it's works fine for win7.  i have four sticks in four slots and i've tried a few different ways and no go.  i guess it's a lost cause

 

still plugging away.  so i ran memory tests with different configurations with the ram till it passed with  1gb stick in slot one and 1gb stick in slot 3.  so i booted to unRaid and tried ifconfig and lsmod with the results attached. network.cfg file is as follows

 

# Generated settings:

USE_DHCP=no

IPADDR=192.168.1.101

NETMASK=255.255.255.0

GATEWAY=192.168.1.1

DHCP_KEEPRESOLV=

DNS_SERVER1=192.168.1.1

DNS_SERVER2=

DNS_SERVER3=

 

not sure what to try next....

It still isn't seeing or allowing your Ethernet card to work. Changing settings won't make any difference until it does. Can we see your syslog?

sorry for the delay.  syslog attached

syslog-2011-07-28.txt