February 22, 20251 yr Hi Guys, Seems like I made a mistake jumping in with both feet purchasing the full blown $250 bux version before even dipping my toes - for the life of me I cannot get it to boot, whatever I do all I get is a black screen and blinking cursor. I guess I can create a new "help me please" post detailing my system and eveything I have tried to get it to try to boot but no success, nothing but the black screen... I bought unraid on good faith / advice that it's almost plug & play but I need to at least get a boot to even venture close and at the mo it's seeming like I wasted 250 bux... Any advice greatly appreciated. Cheers, Neil. Edited February 22, 20251 yr by Farlig69 spelling
February 22, 20251 yr Author Yeah I've been through all of that, done due diligence in searching and spent a long time conversing with chatgbt last night & a lot of today, but I have not posted a cry for help on here yet... Every single time I apply make_bootable_mac & select either efi or legacy I end up with a non-system disc error trying to boot... So tried deleteing the EFI folder instead but it tried to boot or at least I don't get the non-system disk error but just a black screen & blinking cursor.. I've taken a lot of notes of what I've done so will try a cry for help in general.. Couls be that I'm using older equipment (MB / CPU / GPU etc from 2011-2012) but it was quality gear back in the day that's the whole point of builidng a home server innit? The hardware all works fine as post is good and I can boot slax from USB & it works fine so it's unraid that's the issue Edited February 22, 20251 yr by Farlig69 add more waffle & spelling / typos
February 22, 20251 yr Author Yep done all that too, tried all the ports, deactivated 3, then 2, tried legacy usb etc etc but still only black screen & blinking cursor
February 22, 20251 yr If you aren't getting the boot menu maybe BIOS isn't trying to boot the Unraid flash drive.
February 22, 20251 yr Author Why would it not try to do that? I load the flash drive, check in the BIOS, the primary boot device is USB and even names the flash drive, but I still end up in a black screen & blinking cursor. I can pull out the Unraid flash drive, pop in my Slax usb flash drive and the system boots just fine into Slax... I'm at a loss. Here are my notes taken today with the aim of using them to make a cry for help post on here - should I post this into general? Firstly the system, it works fine, POST’s fine, all hardware recognised and able to boot from USB. System tested by booting Slax from usb and it ran fine with full connectivity online. Cannot for the life of me though to get unraid to boot though Main System: Asus P6X58D-E Xeon X5677 CPU 24GB RAM (6 x 4) Asus Radeon HD 6450 silent GPU As I said this system boots slax no issues whatsoever. Made Unraid boot USB with Unraid boot creator on Mac, v 7.0.0 (recommended) Does not boot, ends up with black screen and blinking cursor top left of screen after POST Tried several times, same issue, never get past the black screen Nothing on the network either so not booting blind though the network I/O led’s show signs of some activity Tried to enable legacy boot using “make_bootable_mac” but end up with a “non-system disk” warning at attempt to boot Wiped USB and installed 7.0.0 again, this time deleting the “EFI” folder. No “non system disk” warning, but still end up with black screen and blinking cursor top left and no blind boot. Wiped and installed 6.12.9 on the USB pen, and went through all the same, with the same errors as above. Plain boot disk doesn’t boot Run make_bootable_mac and select either UEFI or Legacy, neither works and I get non-system disc error trying to boot Wipe and reapply initial boot, delete EFI folder, no error but black screen & blinking cursor only. Been through all the steps of disabling fast boot, switching off USB3, then 2, legacy, tried all the USB ports etc The bios sees the USB boot disc fine (Sandisc USB) and I can select it as the primary boot device, all other boot devices disabled. Repeated the above with another USB stick but no changes using brand new Sandisk 2.0 16GB drives. Updated the BIOS to the “newest” version 803 and tried a few more times. Been yakking a lot to chatGBT and done a fair bit of searching on here / google / Reddit but I’m at a loss now… Maybe it’s the older hardware causing issues?? I’ve not tried going further back than version 6.12.9, but I don’t wanna start throwing much more money at this in new MB / CPU / GPU, already used a whack on some decent new parity HDD’s, and cache SSD’s plus a few other bits and bobs it’s starting to get a bit pricey for a home server and I could continue to run dropbox for the family now for another three years for the investment so far…
February 22, 20251 yr Does your BIOS say [UEFI]:{name of flash drive} or USB:{name of flash drive}? if UEFI, Unraid flash drive needs to be set to boot UEFI or you may get a black screen and blinking cursor or a return to BIOS. EFI- folder on Unraid flash drive must be renamed to EFI (remove the - ) to boot UEFI To boot legacy/BIOS it should be EFI- Edited February 23, 20251 yr by Hoopster
February 22, 20251 yr Can you boot another computer with the Unraid flash drive you have prepared? Can you use that same flash drive to boot something else on your intended server?
February 23, 20251 yr Author 10 hours ago, Hoopster said: Does your BIOS say [UEFI]:{name of flash drive} or USB:{name of flash drive}? if UEFI, Unraid flash drive needs to be set to boot UEFI or you may get a black screen and blinking cursor or a return to BIOS. EFI- folder on Unraid flash drive must be renamed to EFI (remove the - ) to boot UEFI To boot legacy/BIOS it should be EFI- Thanks, It says USB: name of the drive (Sandisk) - I have been considering this is an EFI issue hence I tried getting it to boot legacy, but neither option is workimg From what I gather, the P6X58D-E does not support EFI, hence I have been focusing on trying to get it to boot lagacy, perhaps this is where I need more focus? Either way, removing the EFI folder might not be the right way, and when running the “make_bootable_mac” to make it eith EFI or legacy bootable I end up with a brick that needs unraid installed again...
February 23, 20251 yr Author 9 hours ago, trurl said: Can you boot another computer with the Unraid flash drive you have prepared? Can you use that same flash drive to boot something else on your intended server? Thanks Trurl, I don't have another machine ready but I do have enough bits and pieces lying around to build sort of another, however it's from an old off the shelf store bought Packard Bell with a microATX acer (I think) board. Will be a lesser calibre and I think even older variant than the Asus and I'd have to use the same GPU, the original I managed to kill carelessly dropping it 😳 Maybe I should give it a go anyway? Good call on the USB stick, I can install slax on one of the sandiscs and eliminate them from being the issue - I'll try that first 👍🏼
February 23, 20251 yr Community Expert Another ‘trick’ that works for some people is to use the Manual Install method, but use Rufus to format the flash drive to FAT32
February 23, 20251 yr Author Well flashing my Sandisks with Slax worked & booted no problem, so the USB pens are not the issue. Flashed Unbuntu desktop to one of the Sandisks with balena etcher and booted the machine, again NO problem. So, why is Unraid being so difficult? There's a reason I moved to macs in 2012; I used to be a little bit geeky from late 90's through to 2010/11 but I grew out of it, now I remember why, sometimes getting things to work became an exercise in futility and Unraid, as of now is very much that. It's a long way away from plug and play, so back to the subject question, can I get a refund until either I get the trial version to work or until it is indeed plug and play bootable? Edited February 23, 20251 yr by Farlig69 spelling, adjusting meaning and to add image
February 23, 20251 yr Author OK, did a full manual install method (mac), ran the make_bootable_mac and ended up with a brick, again.. Tried running "unraid-usb-creator-1.0.1.exe" on an old laptop running win7 home, installed fine but flashing USB drive with 7.0.0 ended up with "error running make_bootable script. Assembled old PC from bits to get a working windoze environment, same win7 home, same error as laptop... Did the manual version, downloaded unRAIDServer-7.0.0-x86_64-zip, formatted USB drive, unzipped unraid to USB, executed make_bootable.bat BINGO!!! - got the old windoze ramshackled PC to boot Unraid!!! WOW!!! So then as a test, I made another USB flash drive with the mac unraid USB creator, and bingo that too booted Unraid... on the old ramshackled PC...??? WTF? Is this something to do with “EFI” as the acer BIOS says "1st boot [EFI Device" after running Unraid…. Tore apart the acer as I had robbed the PSU & GPU, reinstalled them in my “dedicated” server PC build, and tried again this time using the successful, windoze built USB flash, but again no-go, just the black screen and flashing cursor… Grrrrr...... So now I'm totally and utterly flummoxed... Why on earth does it boot fine on an old Packard Bell / Acer Inc with a BIOS from 2011 but will it not boot on my "dedicated" server Asus PC build with BIOS from 2012; where Slax & Unbuntu have no issues? This is getting beyond my simple abilities now….
February 23, 20251 yr 8 minutes ago, Farlig69 said: not boot on my "dedicated" server Asus PC build with BIOS from 2012 Have you checked for a BIOS update?
February 23, 20251 yr Author 1 minute ago, trurl said: Have you checked for a BIOS update? Yep, updated to the latest available from Asus, 803
February 24, 20251 yr Author Solution I'll summarise this thread & move it to general help hopefully to a wider audience, not sure if this is the right place now we have determned the USB actually boots on some systems, just not mine.
February 24, 20251 yr 10 hours ago, Farlig69 said: now we have determned the USB actually boots on some systems, just not mine. I had an Unraid server on which I had to replace the motherboard under warranty when the BMC/IPMI chip failed. The same flash drive I had been using to boot Unraid for a couple of years on that system (and its predecessor before that) would not boot with the new motherboard. It was the same model and had the same BIOS/UEFI version as the prior board but it would simply not boot Unraid from the flash drive I had always used. I tried that same flash drive on other Unraid systems with no problem; it booted fine. I went through every flash drive I had and none of them would boot Unraid on the new motherboard. Finally, I bought a new USB flash drive (HP brand) at the local Office Depot on a sale and it booted Unraid without issue. It is still booting that system now. I have no idea what happened, but that motherboard was extremely picky about what flash drive it would accept to boot Unraid. Edited February 24, 20251 yr by Hoopster
February 24, 20251 yr Author Thanks Hoopster, managed to get it working via some help to what I posted when I moved this over to general - here´s the thread Cheers, Neil
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