I've just upgraded to 7.3.0 from 7.2.3 but unfortunately I'm stuck at the Unraid boot screen after "loading /bzroot...ok"

In the past I've simply removed the flash drive and plugged it into a windows laptop and have the run the repair which then gets unraid back up and running. However, that doesn't seem to working this time. I've also re-extracted the Unraid release bz* files from the original zip file but again no luck. I've also tried a different USB 2.0 port but no luck either.

Any help would be kindly appreciated.

Hey, please look at this might apply to you, worth a shot: [DIAGNOSED + WORKAROUND] 7.3.0: emhttpd ENOFLASH4 — flash rejected, GUID = (null) on legacy whole-device FAT (superfloppy) USBs - General Support - Unraid

Did you have Unraid connect set up by any chance? That would be the easiest way to restore the flash drive with a cloud copy to a working condition.

21 minutes ago, MonadProxy said:

Did you have Unraid connect set up by any chance? That would be the easiest way to restore the flash drive with a cloud copy to a working condition.

I did but I was more comfortable to do it manually, i have a modded go file, just pers preference but I think main take away is 7.3.0 is picky about USB partitioning, mine worked since 2017 thru all the upgrades up to this point

2 hours ago, opixo said:

Hey, please look at this might apply to you, worth a shot: [DIAGNOSED + WORKAROUND] 7.3.0: emhttpd ENOFLASH4 — flash rejected, GUID = (null) on legacy whole-device FAT (superfloppy) USBs - General Support - Unraid

Really appreciate this thank you!

I've copied those files in step 1 from /boot/previous to the root of the flash drive in an attempt to rollback to 7.2.3. However, upon starting up I have the same issue where Unraid is stuck at the boot screen!

Any other workarounds? Thanks

Well, with a bit of help from Opus 4.7 here are a few reasonable things to check out, my main issue was that the USB drive (a very old one actually but very reliable) was partitioned in a way that Unraid 7.3.0 didn't like (strangely since I had same USB key since 2017 and never had any issues) however apparently yours might be related so something different. Also, my setup is a little bit more complex, I am using a Q-Nap JBOD and have had:

1. 8-year-old superfloppy USB — this is the headline. Most newer flash sticks were already MBR-partitioned, which is why this regression isn't hitting everybody.

2. Modded go script with custom boot-time stuff

3. Custom kernel cmdline (pcie_aspm=off pcie_port_pm=off for ASM1164)

4. /boot/extra/ with pulseway (manual package install from 2018)

5. All-ZFS topology (no Unraid btrfs cache pool, no parity disk for media)

Couple of things worth checking — your symptom is actually a bit different from mine. Mine failed after the kernel was running (emhttpd rejecting the flash); yours is freezing visibly at

loading /bzroot...ok, which is much earlier. That said, you might be hitting a display-only issue while the system is actually booting fine. The 7.3.0 kernel jumped from 6.12.x to 6.18.x and

the new i915/DRM stack can blank the console on some Intel iGPU systems after bzroot even when boot proceeds normally.

Please try these in order:

1. Power on, wait a full 5 minutes, then from another machine on the same network try:

- ping <tower-ip>

- Open http://<tower-ip> in a browser

- ssh root@<tower-ip>

If any of those respond, your system is booting fine and it's just a display issue — see step 3.

2. If nothing responds, take the flash to your Windows laptop and verify the rollback actually took:

- On the USB root, check that bzimage, bzroot, bzroot-gui, bzfirmware, bzmodules have dates matching your old

7.2.3 (not 7.3.0). Easy to mistakenly copy the wrong direction.

- Open bzimage.sha256 in Notepad and confirm the hash matches bzimage (you can compute it in PowerShell with Get-FileHash bzimage -Algorithm SHA256). Any mismatch and the kernel will refuse / hang.

- Open syslinux/syslinux.cfg — the kernel /bzimage and initrd /bzroot,/bzfirmware,/bzmodules lines should not reference anything in /previous/.

3. If you can SSH in but the console is blank, you're hitting the iGPU/framebuffer issue. From SSH, edit /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg and add nomodeset video=vesafb:off i915.modeset=0 to the

append line of the Unraid OS label. Reboot — console should come back. This is purely a display workaround, doesn't affect anything else.

4. Also check what my thread is really about (separate from your boot freeze): in Windows, open Disk Management, find the USB, and look at the partition layout. If it shows "Removable - no

partition table" with a single FAT32 volume spanning the whole disk, you have the superfloppy layout my post addresses — and even if you get past your current boot freeze, you'll hit ENOFLASH4

next. If it shows a proper Partition 1: FAT32, that part of the layout is already fine and the issue is purely kernel/display.

Report back what ping/ssh shows and what the partition layout looks like, happy to keep digging.

Edited May 16May 16 by opixo

10 hours ago, unraid20 said:

upon starting up I have the same issue where Unraid is stuck at the boot screen!

Post a photo showing where it's stuck.

On 5/17/2026 at 9:20 AM, JorgeB said:

Post a photo showing where it's stuck.

This is where it's stuck

If I press tab to try and go to safe mode I get the following

Any thoughts please?

On 5/16/2026 at 9:03 PM, unraid20 said:

I've just upgraded to 7.3.0 from 7.2.3 but unfortunately I'm stuck at the Unraid boot screen after "loading /bzroot...ok"

In the past I've simply removed the flash drive and plugged it into a windows laptop and have the run the repair which then gets unraid back up and running. However, that doesn't seem to working this time. I've also re-extracted the Unraid release bz* files from the original zip file but again no luck. I've also tried a different USB 2.0 port but no luck either.

Any help would be kindly appreciated.

Maybe this helps

Try booting with a different flash drive using a 7.3.0 stock install, no key needed, to confirm if it's a compatibility issue with the newer kernel or a config problem.

18 hours ago, Zonediver said:

Maybe this helps

Thank you for this. Managed to get it working by following the solution in this thread. Thank you @JorgeB