Help booting from USB - getting error "Missing operating system"

[flimflamman]

I've read a few troubleshooting threads, but not really getting anywhere.

 

I'll list my setup below. First UNRAID build. All hardware appears to be installed correctly. computers seems to start up ok. I can access BIOS. I've made sure that USB is my preferred startup method.

 

Used the method here to make a boot disk from my iMac:

http://www.greenleaf-technology.com/blogs/howto/index.php?id=5615428036867012773

 

Appears to work correctly. after using unetbootin I have the unraid server files on my USB sticks. Using unraid server 5.0rc5

 

I've tried 3 different USB drives. a 16GB Patriot XT, a 16GB OCZ and a 1 GB LGear. all give me the same error: missing operating system

 

I can see the computer reading the USB drives from the LEDs flashing.

 

Here's the main components of my setup

 

Case:$80

AZZA Helios 910 Black / Red interior Japanese SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

 

Bays:$210 (3x$70)

NORCO SS-400 4 Bay 3.5" SATA or SAS Hot Swap Rack Module

 

Power supply:$45

CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 V2 (CMPSU-430CXV2) 430W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

 

Motherboard:$65

ECS A885GM-A2 (V1.1) AM3 AMD 880G SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD

 

CPU:$80

AMD Athlon II X3 455 Rana 3.3GHz Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Desktop Processor ADX455WFGMBOX

 

Ram: $30

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10600CL8D-4GBHK

 

 

 

[hilly]

Maybe a simple first question - did you format the flash with the label "UNRAID" rather than leave it as default or something else?

[Joe L.]

Maybe a simple first question - did you format the flash with the label "UNRAID" rather than leave it as default or something else?

That would not prevent it from booting.  It would not work once booted, since it would not find the "UNRAID" label, but that is not the issue in this case.

 

It is either the flash drive was not made bootable, OR, it is not selected as the boot device in the BIOS.

[flimflamman]

They are named UNRAID

 

I'm not sure what else to do. I can see the computer reading the flash drives looking for a boot option. It'd be great if. Someone who has this motherboard could help. I basically made it so that the only boot option was other devices (USB) and turned off hard drive and cd boot.

[sureguy]

You could try using the HP format utility to format the USB drive as FAT rather than FAT32. 

[mr-hexen]

are you sure syslinux worked? i had to change a parameter in mine to work.

 

sometimes windows see's it as a removable usb drive, sometimes not. when it does not an extra option is needed in the syslinux file to complete the operation

[Joe L.]

They are named UNRAID

 

I'm not sure what else to do. I can see the computer reading the flash drives looking for a boot option. It'd be great if. Someone who has this motherboard could help. I basically made it so that the only boot option was other devices (USB) and turned off hard drive and cd boot.

That is typically not enough.

 

You also need to specifically select it as the boot device.  Most times, it will actually show up as a removable hard drive, and not a USB device, although that will vary with the BIOS.  You'll then need to assign it as the boot device in the hard-drive list.

 

Most BIOS will allow you to press a function key (as it starts to boot) to allow you to select an alternate boot device.  You might try that initially to see if the flash drive shows up in the list.  Or, you can try booting ANY PC using the flash drive, just be absolutely sure to NOT assign any drives, else they will be re-partitioned as unRAID would require, wiping out the existing contents..

[Frank1940]

Not ever having used a iMac but having seen a few posts from the Windows folks, I would almost hazard a guess that the files were not unzipped from the ZIP container.  (Windows can show files within the container but the loader for unRAID is not blessed with this capability.)  Windows can also ruin the syslinux utility from within the container which can add another layer of confusion.

 

If you are not certain what is happening, unzip the file you downloaded to a folder on your computer.  Then copy the contents of that folder to the previously formatted memory stick drive.  Then run the utility and try the stick.

[flimflamman]

thanks for all the help.

i ended up installing windows on my iMac and used windows to create my boot disk.

the only difference i found in the processes is that the filesystem in windows was fat32 instead of fat in osx.

boots up just fine now. - waiting for my pro license now... really excited to get everything up and running.

[Yivey_unraid]

Hello!

 

First post in this forum. I really can't get my flash working with any release of the server (tried 4.7 and 5.0 rc8a). Please help me solve this, I'm almost loosing faith in unRAID thanks to these problems. Som facts:

I've just bought myself a HP Microserver N40L.

I've not flashed the BIOS since I don't think I'll need it because I've got a PCI-E card with 2 internal SATA-connectors.

I'm on a Mac but got access to a win7- and a winVista-machine.

I've selected the USB flash as preffered bootup disk and set network to 2:nd choice.

I've tried using a Lexar Jumpdrive Firefly 8GB and a Kingston 16GB.

I've done every step, both on mac using unetbootin and on both win machines following the proper guides. On mac it can't see if the preparation properly works but when I try the make_bootable on the win machines I always get the "volume label is not UNRAID" problem, despite the drive just been formated and named UNRAID. Doesn't matter which drive i use, same result on all three combinations.

None of the drives have U3 software.

Since I couldn't see if the flash was properly made on the mac I tried booting with it on the HP but that only resulted in "No Operating System Found".

The BIOS sees the flash drive and recognize it.

I've tried the HP USB Configuration tool, but with no luck either.

 

I'm almost giving up on this, I now I'm a noobie in linux but this is so frustrating, not even beeing able to make the boot flash..

 

Please help me guys! /Kim

[dgaschk]

Hello!

 

First post in this forum. I really can't get my flash working with any release of the server (tried 4.7 and 5.0 rc8a). Please help me solve this, I'm almost loosing faith in unRAID thanks to these problems. Som facts:

I've just bought myself a HP Microserver N40L.

I've not flashed the BIOS since I don't think I'll need it because I've got a PCI-E card with 2 internal SATA-connectors.

I'm on a Mac but got access to a win7- and a winVista-machine.

I've selected the USB flash as preffered bootup disk and set network to 2:nd choice.

I've tried using a Lexar Jumpdrive Firefly 8GB and a Kingston 16GB.

I've done every step, both on mac using unetbootin and on both win machines following the proper guides. On mac it can't see if the preparation properly works but when I try the make_bootable on the win machines I always get the "volume label is not UNRAID" problem, despite the drive just been formated and named UNRAID. Doesn't matter which drive i use, same result on all three combinations.

None of the drives have U3 software.

Since I couldn't see if the flash was properly made on the mac I tried booting with it on the HP but that only resulted in "No Operating System Found".

The BIOS sees the flash drive and recognize it.

I've tried the HP USB Configuration tool, but with no luck either.

 

I'm almost giving up on this, I now I'm a noobie in linux but this is so frustrating, not even beeing able to make the boot flash..

 

Please help me guys! /Kim

 

Are you running make_bootable as Administrator?

[Yivey_unraid]

Yes, I've done that.

[mr-hexen]

edit the make_bootable.bat file and find the command

 

syslinux xxxxxxx -ma

 

 

there will be two entries, one says echo infront of it.

 

add 'f' to the switch -ma so it reads -maf and try again.

[Yivey_unraid]

Ok, I tried this now on both the Mac and on a windows machine. No difference at all unfortunately. What is the deal when it says it ain't named UNRAID but two rows above it says that volume IS named UNRAID!?! Gaah! Frustrating!

[Yivey_unraid]

Just realized, should I have added "f" to both entries? In that case I'll have to try again..

[mr-hexen]

No only the second is required but I said both for simplicity sake.

 

Make sure UNRAID is in caps and its formatted as Fat32. In windows not mac.

[Yivey_unraid]

Ok, now I tried it on a windows machine and I'm sorry to say that it didn't work. Drive formatted with FAT32 and named UNRAID with all capital letters. Thank you for your help so far, any more ideas?

[mr-hexen]

is it still saying this: "volume label is not UNRAID" ?

 

if it is, and you're SURE the USB has a label of UNRAID, then try the command manually.

 

determine your flash drive's drive letter (i.e. "E:"), BE ABSOLUTELY SURE. *disclaimer, i take no responsibility if you get the drive letter wrong and f'up your system.

 

start>type 'run' and hit enter.

 

type 'cmd' and hit enter.

 

type 'e:' (replace 'e' with your USB drive letter) .

 

type 'dir' and hit enter, you should see syslinux.bat. if you do not you did not unzip the files correctly. Post a screen shot and do not run the next command.

 

type 'syslinux -maf e:' (replace 'e' with your USB drive letter) .

 

 

 

[Yivey_unraid]

OK mr-hexen. Now I tried it and I didn't see 'syslinux.bat'. The files is unzipped with winRAR on windows 7 and vista.

 

So this is exactly what I did, so we're clear and nothing is missed.

 

1) Quick format flash drive in FAT32 and name it 'UNRAID'

2) Download 'unRAID Server 5.0-rc8a AiO.zip' from lime-technology.com

3) Unzip the zip with winRAR.

4) Copy the content from step 3 to the flash drive.

5) Right click 'make_bootable.bat' and run as administrator.

6) I get this result:

 

 

This problem occur every time. It doesn't matter if I run it on a win7 or winVista, same result.

 

7)The I try what mr-hexen said, on the flash drive that have all the above steps done on it, and this is what i get:

 

 

I don't see 'syslinux.bat' anywhere. I get the exact same results after trying this with unRAID Server 4.7.

 

Have I missed something?

 

 

 

[jowi]

Try another flashdrive maybe? I've tried unraid on an old one i had lying around, couldnt get it bootable either. A new one did the trick.

[Yivey_unraid]

I have already tried it with an old and this new Lexar Firefly (which is recommended by Limetech for unRAID). No luck with either. Any other thoughts? Thank you for helping me!

[Joe L.]

I have already tried it with an old and this new Lexar Firefly (which is recommended by Limetech for unRAID). No luck with either. Any other thoughts? Thank you for helping me!

yes...

 

Try opening a command prompt in administrator mode, then chancing the drive letter to the flash drive,

then invoking the makebootable batch file. from the command line.

In other words, click on Start->Accessories, then right click on "Command Prompt" and click on "Run as administrator.  This will open up a MS-DOS window.

 

Then type something like this:

e:

make_bootable.bat

 

[Yivey_unraid]

Ok guys! My dad dropped by and helped me out a bit with the code. Mr-hexen, are you sure you ment 'syslinux.bat' and not 'syslinus.exe'? Anyway, we edited make_bootable.bat like this:

 

Before

 

After adding 'rem'

 

This sealed the deal for me. Now it completed the process and I was able to get my server to boot up.

BUT (!), there is always a but, we're not 100% sure what we have overridden by adding 'rem' to those three entries. The volume IS labeled UNRAID, that I'm sure of, but could it be something else we've missed?

 

I'm going to play around a little with the server but I won't feel safe to put anything vital (of course I've got other backups but still..) on it before I've got it confirmd that I did the "right" thing.

 

Thanks for your time so far guys! 

 

EDIT: The screens are from a Mac but the whole thing was made on a Windows Vista.

[jowi]

To be hounest, the makeboot.bat file never worked for me as well, i just run syslinux by hand...

[Yivey_unraid]

I have already tried it with an old and this new Lexar Firefly (which is recommended by Limetech for unRAID). No luck with either. Any other thoughts? Thank you for helping me!

yes...

 

Try opening a command prompt in administrator mode, then chancing the drive letter to the flash drive,

then invoking the makebootable batch file. from the command line.

In other words, click on Start->Accessories, then right click on "Command Prompt" and click on "Run as administrator.  This will open up a MS-DOS window.

 

Then type something like this:

e:

make_bootable.bat

 

Sorry, didn't see your post. Do you think I can make it work the way I did?