USB Stick no longer boots -- HELP!

[dpc2]

I've encountered a problem with booting up my server after upgrading to Unraid Plus and despite several hours spent trying to tweak, debug, and reformat, I can't get it fixed.  I had one initial response to a mail to Tom, but nothing since, so I'll copy the correspondence in here and see if anyone can help:

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>> Initial mail

 

Tom,

 

I've had a problem installing this key.  I stopped my array and powered down.  Then I pulled out the USB Flash stick (a Toshiba) and put it into a PC.  I dragged the plus.key into the config directory, ejected the stick and stuck it back into the Unraid server, but now the server won't boot.  It gets to the line about "DMI Pool" and then stops with a "Boot error".  The BIOS hasn't been touched, and is still set to boot from a USB ZIP.

 

I have a spare USB flash set up with basic Unraid, so I copied my config files onto it and was able to boot normally, so there's nothing wrong with the server itself.  While it doesn't seem like anything's gone wrong with the original flash stick, it must have some problem.  Is it possible that the stick got corrupted somehow just by using it with a PC and then moving it back?  It was only out of the server for about five minutes!

 

Would appreciate your help solving this mystery.  The server is working fine now, but I of course have the problem of having a plus.key file for a stick which appears to no longer be working.

 

Thanks,

 

Dave

 

>>>>>>>>>> Tom's response

 

Hi Dave,

 

What I would do is plug the Flash into your PC, copy all the files off of it to a temporary folder; and, then re-format, re-run syslinux, and then copy all the files back.  I also always right-click the device under My Computer and select ‘Eject’.  This shouldn’t be necessary, but I always do it anyway.

 

What motherboard?

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>> My latest

 

Tom,

 

I have been working on this tonight for several hours tonight and still no luck.  I reformatted the USB stick under Windows and copied all the files back and couldn't get it to boot.  Then I reformatted under Knoppix using a ZIP partition.  This gets me slightly further, but hangs with this error:

 

Could not find kernel image: linux

boot:

 

I can't get past that.  I've been searching Linux forums and can't find anything that works.

 

The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R.  I also tried plugging this stick into a different computer and got the same error.

 

>>>>>>>>>

 

 

Would very much appreciate any help or advice anyone can offer.

 

Dave

 

[captain_video]

When you formatted the flash drive did you remember to enter the volume label as "UNRAID"?  If you didn't it probably won't boot.  Just pull the drive and insert it in your main PC and change the volume label.

[Joe L.]

When you formatted the flash drive did you remember to enter the volume label as "UNRAID"?  If you didn't it probably won't boot.  Just pull the drive and insert it in your main PC and change the volume label.

Actually, a missing volume label will not prevent the server from booting, but will prevent the network interface module from loading.

Try using the "-ma" options to syslinux as shown here

syslinux -ma z:

 

(Change drive Z above to the drive letter of your flash drive)

 

If that do not do it...

Did you remove any "U3" utility on your flash drive?  If not, that is the first thing you need to do.

Did you use the HP tool to format your flash drive?  If not, try that.

 

[dpc2]

I've now tried all of the above (double-checked UNRAID label, reloaded syslinux with -ma command, reformatted with HP Tool and started over) and still can't get it to work.  It now hangs at the "Verifying DMI pool data..." message and will go no further.  I've tried booting as a USB-FDD or USB-HDD....still no luck.

 

Again, note that this stick used to work!

 

Any other ideas?  any difference formatting FAT. FAT32, or NTSF??

[PhilH]

I would try formating between fat & fat32. One of my boards works with fat & not fat32. The board I am using now only works with fat32. I would try both ways.

 

Phil

[j5428]

Some motherboards BIOS have an option Legacy USB support for DOS. My ECS GOAL3+ this had to be enabled then the drive booted.  Just something to check.

[RobJ]

It now hangs at the "Verifying DMI pool data..." message and will go no further.

 

This seems significant to me.  Are you sure it is finishing the POST process?  If you aren't even getting a boot error, then I think you may have developed a hardware problem, unrelated to the flash drive.  In fact, the flash drive may have been fine all along.  A simple test would be to pull the flash drive out and reboot, and see if there is any new message, or if it hangs at the exact same point.

 

[dpc2]

I've done some more testing and still no boot.

 

It now hangs at the "Verifying DMI pool data..." message and will go no further.

 

This seems significant to me.  Are you sure it is finishing the POST process?  If you aren't even getting a boot error, then I think you may have developed a hardware problem, unrelated to the flash drive.  In fact, the flash drive may have been fine all along.  A simple test would be to pull the flash drive out and reboot, and see if there is any new message, or if it hangs at the exact same point.

 

 

I took the stick out and booted and yes, it did hang again at exactly the same spot.  But when I inserted a different stick it booted as usual with no problem.

 

Some motherboards BIOS have an option Legacy USB support for DOS. My ECS GOAL3+ this had to be enabled then the drive booted.  Just something to check.

 

I had a look and mine is enabled.  I disabled and there was no change.

 

I would try formating between fat & fat32. One of my boards works with fat & not fat32. The board I am using now only works with fat32. I would try both ways.

 

Phil

 

I've now tried both and neither work.  The only way I've been able to get any further past the "Verifying DMI Pool data..." hang was to format under Linux using Knoppix, but that only got me one step further, to the next error:

 

"Could not find kernel image: linux

boot:"

 

I'm at the end of my rope with this thing.  I like UnRaid, and when the stars are in alignment and it's all working perfectly, it's really slick.  But I've probably spent more hours trying to tackle the seemingly endless operating and compatibility issues than I've ever spent on any other piece of technology.  These forums are a help, and I appreciate everyone's suggestions, but it's a very frustrating process and doesn't give me much confidence that my server will be bulletproof if I ever do get Plus up and running. Grrrrrrr.....

[NAS]

When this happened to me it was an incompatibitly between fat and fat32.

 

EXACT same errors messages.

 

I also had a random usb stick that gave that LINUX error message that i could never amke work. I just got a new one to save time.

[RobJ]

It doesn't sound like there's anything wrong with your unRAID server, just a flash drive that has gone bad.  Bad timing for it to happen during an attempt to upgrade, but it may have been at its end-of-life point.  These flash drives have a limited write lifetime, with a built-in wear-leveling to extend it, but I understand that some of them will last much longer than others.  If that is the problem, then all of the additional formatting and copying has only made it worse.  Time to replace it...

 

[jimwhite]

Geeks has 1gb USB drives for $8... time to move on 

 

 

[Joe L.]

Geeks has 1gb USB drives for $8... time to move on 

 

 

Load up a new flash drive to boot from.  Even without a "key" file, you should be able to prove the old flash drive has bit the dust and boot up unRaid  Then send Tom an e-mail with the serial num of the new drive and a plea for assistance.

[dpc2]

Geeks has 1gb USB drives for $8... time to move on 

 

 

Load up a new flash drive to boot from.  Even without a "key" file, you should be able to prove the old flash drive has bit the dust and boot up unRaid  Then send Tom an e-mail with the serial num of the new drive and a plea for assistance.

 

Thanks, all.  I will pick up a new stick and start over (the one that's giving me fits was only six weeks old when the trouble started, but so be it.)  Unfortunately I haven't been able to get any response out of Tom regarding moving my plus key to a different stick, hence my dogged determination to try and make the old one work!

[limetech]

Found your email & replied...

[cj0r]

I am now suffering from the same "Verifying DMI pool data..." message. I've tried a 2nd USB stick with no luck and am about to try a 3rd. Is there anything else that could be causing this error? Is my data still intact on the drive? I noticed that my server went down a few hours ago when it was moving some files from 1 drive to the other (3 drives total). I went upstairs to see what was up to find it stalled at the "Verifying DMI message." I have no idea what caused it and am running out of ideas to fix it.

 

edit: Tried 3rd stick and still no good...

edit2: I'm back up... lots of trial and error, bios settings, different usb sticks... finally back and rebuilding one of my drives. Phew... I found out that someone was messing with the breakers today and must have switched the one the server was on (haven't put in a UPS yet since this is pretty new). But... pheew.

[erikatcuse]

I've encountered a problem with booting up my server after upgrading to Unraid Plus and despite several hours spent trying to tweak, debug, and reformat, I can't get it fixed.  I had one initial response to a mail to Tom, but nothing since, so I'll copy the correspondence in here and see if anyone can help:

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>> Initial mail

 

Tom,

 

I've had a problem installing this key.  I stopped my array and powered down.  Then I pulled out the USB Flash stick (a Toshiba) and put it into a PC.  I dragged the plus.key into the config directory, ejected the stick and stuck it back into the Unraid server, but now the server won't boot.  It gets to the line about "DMI Pool" and then stops with a "Boot error".  The BIOS hasn't been touched, and is still set to boot from a USB ZIP.

 

I have a spare USB flash set up with basic Unraid, so I copied my config files onto it and was able to boot normally, so there's nothing wrong with the server itself.  While it doesn't seem like anything's gone wrong with the original flash stick, it must have some problem.  Is it possible that the stick got corrupted somehow just by using it with a PC and then moving it back?  It was only out of the server for about five minutes!

 

Would appreciate your help solving this mystery.  The server is working fine now, but I of course have the problem of having a plus.key file for a stick which appears to no longer be working.

 

Thanks,

 

Dave

 

>>>>>>>>>> Tom's response

 

Hi Dave,

 

What I would do is plug the Flash into your PC, copy all the files off of it to a temporary folder; and, then re-format, re-run syslinux, and then copy all the files back.  I also always right-click the device under My Computer and select ‘Eject’.  This shouldn’t be necessary, but I always do it anyway.

 

What motherboard?

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>> My latest

 

Tom,

 

I have been working on this tonight for several hours tonight and still no luck.  I reformatted the USB stick under Windows and copied all the files back and couldn't get it to boot.  Then I reformatted under Knoppix using a ZIP partition.  This gets me slightly further, but hangs with this error:

 

Could not find kernel image: linux

boot:

 

I can't get past that.  I've been searching Linux forums and can't find anything that works.

 

The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R.  I also tried plugging this stick into a different computer and got the same error.

 

>>>>>>>>>

 

 

Would very much appreciate any help or advice anyone can offer.

 

Dave

 

 

 

Did you try to go back to basic with your original stick?  If so did it work?  If it did then you can copy the key file over to the unraid server instead of plugging it into a windows machine.  Just make sure that the flash drive is not read only.  Then stop the array and reboot and see what happens.