unRaid does not Boot automatically

[Sascha147]

Hello everyone, I could really use some help. I recently purchased a Terramaster F6-424 Max and I'm trying to install unRaid on it. However, I'm running into a persistent issue: every time I want to boot into unRaid, I have to manually press F12 to access the Bootloader and then select unRaid to start. The same thing happens if I'm already in unRaid and choose to restart; the system shuts down and gets stuck on the Terramaster logo until I again press F12 and manually select unRaid.

I've tested installing TrueNAS Scale on the same USB drive, and it boots automatically without any need to enter the Bootloader.

I've attached some screenshots of my BIOS settings, which I've adjusted according to the unRaid instructions. I'd really appreciate it if someone could take a look and see if I might have missed a setting. Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[talkaboutit]

Did you try to disable secure boot?

 

[Sascha147]

1 hour ago, talkaboutit said:

Did you try to disable secure boot?

 

Yes, Secure Boot is disabled. I can switch between Custom and Standard in Secure Boot Mode, but changing this setting doesn't seem to affect boot behavior.

 

[talkaboutit]

What if you disable all the drives except the stick. Does it boot? I don't mean the boot option. 

 

Find Drive Settings:

Navigate to the SATA Configuration or a similar section. This is often found under Advanced Settings or Integrated Peripherals.

Disable the Hard Drive:

Locate the list of connected drives (SATA or IDE devices) and select the HDD you want to disable.

Change the status to Disabled, or turn off the relevant SATA port

[Sascha147]

7 hours ago, talkaboutit said:

What if you disable all the drives except the stick. Does it boot? I don't mean the boot option. 

 

Find Drive Settings:

Navigate to the SATA Configuration or a similar section. This is often found under Advanced Settings or Integrated Peripherals.

Disable the Hard Drive:

Locate the list of connected drives (SATA or IDE devices) and select the HDD you want to disable.

Change the status to Disabled, or turn off the relevant SATA port

I tried completely disabling the SATA controller and only enabling the USB drive for booting, but unfortunately, that didn't work either. The frustrating part is that there are no error messages or logs being recorded in the BIOS or system. It's so sad because I'd love to use unRaid. However, having to manually select unRaid in the bootloader every time I boot or reboot is pointless.

I suspect Terramaster has a hidden setting in its BIOS that prevents unRaid from booting.

 

[JorgeB]

Strange that it would work with TrueNAS and not Unraid, should be the same, when you use the bootloader, do you still select the same UEFI option?

 

Even if this flash works with TN, do you have a different flash drive you could test with?

[SimonF]

Have you tried XCHI handoff? 

 

Unlikely to help but try turning off mass storage option.

[Sascha147]

38 minutes ago, JorgeB said:

Strange that it would work with TrueNAS and not Unraid, should be the same, when you use the bootloader, do you still select the same UEFI option?

 

Even if this flash works with TN, do you have a different flash drive you could test with?

I've tried booting Unraid from 3 different USB drives (2x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.0) from work and got the same result. What exactly should the UEFI option be called? I've only been using the Unraid USB-Creator software and making sure the "EFI" folder doesn't have a hyphen (with a hyphen, it boots directly into the BIOS). However, I can't find any obvious setting in my BIOS to change UEFI options or switch to CSM.

[Sascha147]

12 minutes ago, SimonF said:

Have you tried XCHI handoff? 

 

Unlikely to help but try turning off mass storage option.

I've disabled the "XCHI Handoff" option. When I additionally turn off "USB Mass Storage", the system boots directly into the BIOS instead of gets stuck on Terramaster Logo.

 

[SimonF]

14 minutes ago, Sascha147 said:

I've disabled the "XCHI Handoff" option. When I additionally turn off "USB Mass Storage", the system boots directly into the BIOS instead of gets stuck on Terramaster Logo.

 

Was xhci enabled before?

[JorgeB]

40 minutes ago, Sascha147 said:

What exactly should the UEFI option be called?

[itimpi]

45 minutes ago, Sascha147 said:

I've only been using the Unraid USB-Creator software and making sure the "EFI" folder doesn't have a hyphen (with a hyphen,

It could be worth trying the Manual Install method instead.   Users have also reported success with solving booting issues when using Rufus to handle the formatting of the flash drive.

[Sascha147]

42 minutes ago, SimonF said:

Was xhci enabled before?

Yes, I tried both with all combinations enabled/disabled nothing helped. 

[Sascha147]

29 minutes ago, itimpi said:

It could be worth trying the Manual Install method instead.   Users have also reported success with solving booting issues when using Rufus to handle the formatting of the flash drive.

Okay, I'll try a manual installation with rufus later when I'm back home.

[Simona]

I got the same problem. Tried the manual way, didn’t work… tried the refus way, didn’t work. 
 

wonder if they did something in the bios to prevent it bootable with unraid 

[SimonF]

2 hours ago, Sascha147 said:

Okay, I'll try a manual installation with rufus later when I'm back home.

Does Ubuntu usb boot ok?

[Simona]

5 hours ago, SimonF said:

Does Ubuntu usb boot ok?

No it does not. You can go to bios and force it to boot from it.

 

but if you reboot and let it pick the boot usb, it will just do nothing. 

[Snubbers]

Also just got this NAS (F6-424 Max)..

Same issue, if I go in to BIOS and manually override the boot option from there it boots to UnRAID fine, or hit F12 on the AMI Bios screen and select it, it will boot..

 

I tried following this guide 

 

And no joy, the first boot, It sticks at the AMI Bios screen, if I CTRL+ALT+DEL it will reboot and get passed the AMI BIOS screen, but sticks on a black screen!

I re-did the Debian Live bootable USB and it does boot to that, which is encouraging (still selecting the "Add fixes for old BIOSes).. I can also boot from USB Virtual CD Drives.. And of course it will boot from a Windows 11 install on an NVME drive..

I guess this must be some compatibility with the specific UNRAID boot and this hardware, I have seen people on other forums with the 1235U CPU have boot from USB issues, someone did a BIOS load from defaults which fixed it! but I'm not brave enough to have a go myself yet..

 

 

 

[Simona]

I tried the load from default many times, didn’t do anything for me. 

Edited September 21, 2024 by Simona

[Sascha147]

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that I've reached out to Terramaster support regarding the persistent boot issue we're facing with unRAID on the F6-424 Max. Here's the email I sent them, in case it helps anyone else experiencing the same problem:

Quote

Subject: Persistent Boot Issue with Terramaster F6-424 Max and unRAID

Dear Terramaster Support,

I am writing to inquire about a persistent issue I am encountering with my newly purchased Terramaster F6-424 Max. I am attempting to install unRAID on the device, but I am consistently experiencing the following problem:

Manual Boot Selection: Every time I attempt to boot into unRAID, I must manually press F12 to access the boot loader and then select unRAID to start. This issue persists even when I restart the system while already in unRAID. The device will shut down and become stuck on the Terramaster logo until I intervene and manually select unRAID.

I have attempted to troubleshoot this issue by installing TrueNAS Scale on the same USB drive, and I was able to boot into TrueNAS Scale automatically without any need to enter the boot loader. This leads me to believe that there may be a specific configuration or setting related to unRAID that is preventing it from booting automatically.

I would greatly appreciate your assistance in resolving this issue. Could you please provide guidance on any BIOS settings or configurations that may need to be adjusted to enable automatic booting into unRAID? Additionally, I would like to clarify whether there are any restrictions or limitations imposed by Terramaster on the installation of unRAID on this device.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

Sincerely, 

 

If you're also facing this issue, feel free to use this email template and send it to Terramaster support ([email protected]). Let's see what their response is and hopefully find a solution together!

[Snubbers]

[edit] - For now I'm hiding my comments, their FAQs suggest they will invalidate your warranty if you install another OS, however initial support requests have been positive, so in the interest of giving them a fair time, I'll see what happens!

...

 

 

I've moved over all my HW to the 424 Max, my server was failing (although might actually have been just the USB Stick!) and needs upgrading, I have the usual 30 day Amazon return window but it would be a shame if this wasn't addressed!

 

Is it not worth also contacting Unraid support? I think this might just be a more simple compatibility issue they may be able to resolve as well.. 

I've tried 10 UEFI Bootable USB OS' and all work fine, including Slackwares latest live setup.. So I then tried to change Volume labels and other things to try to get other bootable USB OS' to look more like Unraid (Just to test the assertion they might be blocking Unraid, which I don't believe why they'd single them out) to no avail, I can't make a bootable USB stop booting unless I replace the bootx64.efi or similar.

 

Edited September 24, 2024 by Snubbers
Updated post support contact

[Snubbers]

On 9/20/2024 at 2:09 PM, itimpi said:

It could be worth trying the Manual Install method instead.   Users have also reported success with solving booting issues when using Rufus to handle the formatting of the flash drive.

Thanks! As above, I've tried this and done some more testing and can't get it to boot.

 

I lack knowledge of what the bootx64.efi and associated files are doing with UEFI, but the latest live slackware distro works fine, and I see they have a menu system on boot (similar menu files), and with all the other OS' that seem to work with UEFI, I wonder if Unraid might be so nice as to look in to it for us? 

I've already seen people on other forums discuss the Terramaster NAS' and the ability to use Unraid and it's definitely bringing in people who want pre-built hardware yet access to the awesome slickness and support of Unraid... 

 

Edited September 23, 2024 by Snubbers

[Snubbers]

Small update, Terramaster support just got back with surprising news!

 

Quote

We have confirmed the feasibility of installing Unraid.

 

 

I've sent images of the BIOS and all details requested, here's hoping..

I've been messing around with the NAS a bit more, and hopefully this issue can be fixed as the HW is quite good! I've tried a 64GB RAM upgrade and that was perfect, and will be trying some newer M.2 NVME Drives to see if I can get ASPM working on those, if I enable it on the WD SN750's (4 years old now!) I get recoverable errors once it goes to L1 ASPM which is not uncommon with older NVME drives!

 

I'll also install windows 11 on a spare HDD and boot to that to see about updating the ASM1166 firmware if it is not the latest.

 

Edited September 24, 2024 by Snubbers

[Simona]

So they are simply looking into it? So no solution yet? 

[Snubbers]

2 hours ago, Simona said:

So they are simply looking into it? So no solution yet? 

That is correct, but it's a start..

 

At least they say they've confirmed Unraid should boot and I've sent information they've asked for, so lets see how it progresses, I personally think it's an EFI compatibility issue, I have found SLAX (which I believe Unraid is loosely sharing bits with) also doesn't boot, but every other linux distro seems to..