So I bought a prebuilt from Tom, was very excited to receive it a couple weeks ago.

 

Had problems getting it to boot properly and determined that there was either a problem with the raid card or the 5th drive.  So I took the fifth drive out and it started up like a charm, formatted the drives, built the parity disk. I set up all my shares and finally managed to get everything off my existing NAS onto my MD1500.

 

So now I have an extra 4 disks and decide to throw them in the box.  Now it won't boot - seems to see the drives but gets to a point where I'm left with a blank screen and a flashing cursor.  I tried moving the drives to different bays and eventually removed them and got the box back to where I was this morning.

 

But it still won't boot.  We're having an open house this afternoon, all my music is on the unraid box, but fat lot of good it does because it won't boot.

 

I did so much research before deciding to go this route and, while I admit I'm not super techy, I'm certainly comfortable enough to open up the box and check connections, to do my googling and my research to try to troubleshoot things.  But this just really seems unstable to me, which is surprising given everything I read in the forums and other research I did before deciding to go with unraid.

 

I would really appreciate any help that anyone can provide.  Do you have any idea why it suddenly won't boot?  What do I need to do from here given that I only have a flashing cursor without even a command prompt?  Is there a quick fix?  Now I have to try to explain to my wife why the Xmas playlists we put together last night for the squeezebox aren't accessible!

 

Would really appreciate any help......

 

TIA

So I took the fifth drive out and it started up like a charm, formatted the drives, built the parity disk. I set up all my shares and finally managed to get everything off my existing NAS onto my MD1500.

 

This points strongly to a hardware or cabling problem. 

 

So I bought a prebuilt from Tom

 

A complete prebuilt *system* with drives or just a flash with unRAID already installed?

It sounds like you might have the jumper settings on the new hard drives you have set up wrong.  Why not take out the new hard drives you installed and see if it will boot.  If it does then at least you have access to your music for today and then you can trouble shoot afterwards.

So I bought a prebuilt from Tom, was very excited to receive it a couple weeks ago.

 

Had problems getting it to boot properly and determined that there was either a problem with the raid card or the 5th drive.  So I took the fifth drive out and it started up like a charm, formatted the drives, built the parity disk. I set up all my shares and finally managed to get everything off my existing NAS onto my MD1500.

 

So now I have an extra 4 disks and decide to throw them in the box.  Now it won't boot - seems to see the drives but gets to a point where I'm left with a blank screen and a flashing cursor.  I tried moving the drives to different bays and eventually removed them and got the box back to where I was this morning.

 

But it still won't boot.  We're having an open house this afternoon, all my music is on the unraid box, but fat lot of good it does because it won't boot.

 

I did so much research before deciding to go this route and, while I admit I'm not super techy, I'm certainly comfortable enough to open up the box and check connections, to do my googling and my research to try to troubleshoot things.  But this just really seems unstable to me, which is surprising given everything I read in the forums and other research I did before deciding to go with unraid.

 

I would really appreciate any help that anyone can provide.  Do you have any idea why it suddenly won't boot?  What do I need to do from here given that I only have a flashing cursor without even a command prompt?  Is there a quick fix?  Now I have to try to explain to my wife why the Xmas playlists we put together last night for the squeezebox aren't accessible!

 

Would really appreciate any help......

 

TIA

Frequently, when you add new hardware, the "boot order" in the bios is reset by it to the new drive you just installed.  It thinks it is helping you.. right...

 

You might try to look in the bios, and see if the USB flash drive is still set as the boot device.  It might be as simple as that.

The fact that the bios sees the drives is good, with luck it probably is just trying to boot from one of the new ones, instead of the USB flash drive. If so, all you need to do is set it properly in the bios once more.

 

Joe L.

Thanks for the responses

 

This is an MD1500 prebuilt system bought from Tom - has no drives but came with unraid on the flash already installed on the machine.

 

I do have a keyboard, monitor and mouse attached to the box via a KVM switch so I am able to access it.

 

I have removed all the drives and am back to where I started this morning after powering down the box.  I've also checked all the cabling and the raid card

 

I was wondering if the BIOS has reset to not boot from the flash - how would I rectify this?  And why would it all of a sudden reset itself - if that's what it is and it's an easy fix then great, I would know how to deal with it going forward.

 

Perhaps if I wasn't under the deadline of people arriving for a party in under 3 hours I would be far less stressed about this.  Thanks for everyone's help so far

 

Thanks for the responses

I was wondering if the BIOS has reset to not boot from the flash - how would I rectify this?  And why would it all of a sudden reset itself - if that's what it is and it's an easy fix then great, I would know how to deal with it going forward.

 

Perhaps if I wasn't under the deadline of people arriving for a party in under 3 hours I would be far less stressed about this.  Thanks for everyone's help so far

 

Unfortunately, some BIOS reset themselves when they see new disks.  They "think" they are helping you.

 

When you first power on, usually on the screen will be a line that says "Press XX to enter setup" or something like that.  On my old Intel board it is function key "F2"

 

Once in the bios, you would need to find the page that sets the boot device and boot order.

Finally, you must save the new configuration and reboot.

 

What motherboard are you running?  Even if you do not have the manual, odds are high it is on the web.

 

Joe L.

I  guess that makes sense that the mb would try to help me by resetting the BIOS

 

I did get into setup and changed the boot order and now it's working!

 

Sheesh I feel like an idiot!  What an obvious fix and I know I've read it in the forums before.

 

Please excuse my rush to judgment!!

 

One thing I did know I could count on is the awesome community of people on these forums that are so willing to help a newbie like me get up and running.

 

Thanks again

 

(stay tuned)