I shut down my unRAID server to try and upgrade Crashplan after it quit working for me recently (I see there are a few threads on this); now unRAID will no longer boot from the flash drive. 

 

The flash drive can be read in Windows, everything appears to be OK on the drive.  I have even reformatted, copied all files back to the flash drive and run make_bootable.bat.

 

The BIOS posts and recognizes the flash drive as a boot device, but, all I get is a blinking cursor on the monitor.  UnRAID never loads from the flash drive.

 

I have changed nothing in the BIOS or on the flash drive.

 

The flash drive is the Kingston MobileLite G2 with an 8GB MicroSD card in the SD Card adapter.  I can read the MicroSD card in the MicroSD, SD (with adapter) or USB slot in my card reader on my Windows machine.  I have tried the MobileLite G2 in all four USB slots on my unRAID server with the same result.  There appears to be nothing wrong with the card or MobileLite G2 reader

 

Everything has been working great for months and the server just sleeps when not in use and wakes when I need to use it.  This is the first reboot I have done in at least two months and now unRAID will not load.

 

I was going to try to solve the CrashPlan problem and then try an upgrade to a later v5 RC.

 

I guess I can try making another bootable flash drive to make sure the system is properly booting from USB as per BIOS settings.  Any other ideas?

 

Currently running unRAID v5 RC 6 r8168 test2

 

 

OK - I feel stupid 

 

Somehow, BIOS settings got all messed up as far as drive boot order.  The Kingston SD Reader was 5th in the boot priority instead of 1st even though I had not done anything to change it.  BIOS must have been reset to defaults somehow.  Everything was fine as long as I didn't reboot and unRAID remained loaded in RAM.  First reboot and, boom, no unRAID since it was trying to boot from one of the hard drives.

 

I set BIOS to proper boot order and unRAID now boots from the flash drive.

That's been a very common issue! 

 

Apparently, they want to 'help' you whenever you add another hard drive or another disk controller, and reorder the boot order for you.  Most of us try to always check the BIOS after one of those changes, just to see what the BIOS has changed it to, and set it back to what we wanted.

What is the trick if my bios screen will not stay up long enough for me to change it? IE, hit F12. Motherboard screen stays up about 2 seconds and I don't think the keyboard is recognized for a few more seconds (I don't hear the beep of hitting the f12 will after the main motherboard screen goes away).

 

Im assuming I cant boot up unraid because my bios has changed and not booting from USB.

Try F2 or delete.

Thanks Jonathon.

 

Well the keyboard DOES turn on fast enough now. I took the unraid server off the  KVM and plugged a monitor and keyboard directly into it. F2 is indeed for bios, thanks for that. , but it still clicks by so fast and goes right into some channel scanning mode (for hard drives it looks like). not sure what I an do to get it to go or stay in bios mode. im sure im doing something stupid wrong lol.

 

 

It appears when I hit TAB and delete, or some combo thereof, it does go to a different screen which is the typical screen one sees when a PC is booting up but then off to the scan type menu for drives. I will keep playing with it! Hopefully I will eventually hit the right buttons lol.

Yeah...I type to slowly as well.

I just hold down the f-key from the moment I hit the power button.

...its the only way I can intercept the BIOS in time.

F2 is indeed for bios, thanks for that. , but it still clicks by so fast and goes right into some channel scanning mode (for hard drives it looks like). not sure what I an do to get it to go or stay in bios mode.

Many boards will complete the drive scan, and then instead of booting, it will load the BIOS setup. Typically you will see "Entering BIOS" or something similar on the screen just before the drive scan, so you know it will bypass the boot and go into BIOS.

Still no luck. It always goes to scan drives and only make it through two of the four until it locks up and stays there. Im sure all I need to do is get into bios! tried holding down all buttons: tab, f2, f9, f12, delete. Its like the keyboard strokes are not even registering until the drive scans starts. I don't hear the beep of the keep board until after scan. maybe something else is wrong. The board screen pops up for just over ONE second.

Hmm, well I'll be. Jonathon, you're right. I just left the scan go on for several minutes and eventually it DID get to bios after I held down the DELETE key on boot up. At least I go in bios. Turns out USB was not the priority. Still not getting past the first two 2gb drives and into unRAID but that's likely a different issue.

 

Thanks!

Crazy day. After trying f12, it went to scanning drives. Got flustered. Walked away and 20 minutes later it booted up. lol.

 

Thanks for listening to me whine!