[SOLVED] P4C800-E and USB Lexar 4gb Boot

[dbrown2]

Hello,

 

I have UnRaid running on my old 512mb USB on my old P4C800-E asus mb.  It runs fine, but as I add new packages, I am getting very close to running out of space.  I wanted to upgrade to a larger USB drive.  After reading recommended USB sticks I bought the lexar 4gb.  But I can't seem to get it to boot.  (the 512 works great).

 

The system tries to access the usb stick, but stops at a flashing cursor.  I have tried:

 

Formatting FAT

FAT32

Use the AIO make_bootable

This link http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2407.0;wap2

This link and all of the steps http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=USB_Flash_Drive_Preparation

 

But no luck.. It will boot just fine a newer PC, but not the P4C800

 

I can upgrade my system and move my current motherboard over, but I was hopping to not need too.

Suggestions?

 

 

 

[Rajahal]

Go into the motherboard's BIOS options and play with the USB emulation mode.  Try 'hard disk', 'FDD', etc.  If none of those work, try setting the USB ports to 1.0 speed (this will make the server boot slower).

[SSD]

I had this MB in my server a while back and noticed it had trouble booting from larger USB drives. If Raj's suggestion doesn't work, you might want to try a 1G or 2G flash disk.

[PeterB]

... or try partitioning your 4GB flash drive?

[dbrown2]

Well, I tried the bios settings and I tried a 2gb micro card placed in a usb adapter without luck.  Not sure how to partition a usb drive though.

 

I did order a 1 gb and a 2gb and will see what happens.

 

One thing....  I thought of..  I can boot fine off of the 512mb usb, can I boot off the 512 and then somehow load unraid from the larger drives?

 

 

[dbrown2]

Ok, Another note:

 

I found that I can format my 4gb usb as FAT or FAT32 and in bios set the usb storage to auto and during post press F8 to bring up a boot menu.  From there I can select the usb device and it will boot fine.  But it will not boot on its own.

 

I have tried to Force FDD, HDD, floppy (got an error loading os), and CDROM none will allow the usb boot on its own, but I can use the boot menu to select it and boot up.

 

Thoughts?  Maybe it is best to boot off the 512 and then some how load from the 4gb.

 

[prostuff1]

the os will fit on the 512 without issue

 

 

[PeterB]

Not sure how to partition a usb drive though.

 

I usually use gparted on Ubuntu, but it should be possible to use fdisk on unRAID/slackware.

[dbrown2]

I will give that a try.

[vl1969]

Ok, Another note:

 

I found that I can format my 4gb usb as FAT or FAT32 and in bios set the usb storage to auto and during post press F8 to bring up a boot menu.  From there I can select the usb device and it will boot fine.  But it will not boot on its own.

 

I have tried to Force FDD, HDD, floppy (got an error loading os), and CDROM none will allow the usb boot on its own, but I can use the boot menu to select it and boot up.

 

Thoughts?  Maybe it is best to boot off the 512 and then some how load from the 4gb.

 

 

if you can use boot menu to boot from flash drive it means that your  MB support the boot, you just need to find a setting in BIOS that allows you to change boot order the BIOS use to search for a boot device on start up.

 

most BIOS are set to boot from HDD first, but you can change it most of the time to look for

removable media first , then CD/DVD (some times removable media includes CD/DVD but I have a PC where this is a separate option) then HDD.

 

also make sure that you do not have a bootable HDD in the system as I personally run into problem with that (pluged in a windows HD to test my new build and could not boot from flash.  dropped the MB for a new one :-) )

 

 

[dbrown2]

if you can use boot menu to boot from flash drive it means that your  MB support the boot, you just need to find a setting in BIOS that allows you to change boot order the BIOS use to search for a boot device on start up.

 

most BIOS are set to boot from HDD first, but you can change it most of the time to look for

removable media first , then CD/DVD (some times removable media includes CD/DVD but I have a PC where this is a separate option) then HDD.

 

also make sure that you do not have a bootable HDD in the system as I personally run into problem with that (pluged in a windows HD to test my new build and could not boot from flash.  dropped the MB for a new one :-) )

 

 

Thank you very much....  I went back into the bios and looked at the HDD order list.  Found the USB drive at the bottom.  I moved each one down until the usb moved to the top.  The system booted on its own.

 

Thank you again.

 

David

[Rajahal]

Glad you finally got it working!  I'm marking this thread as [sOLVED].  Feel free to change it back if you have further problems and need to reopen the thread.