I recently upgraded to V6 from 4.5.4. During that process I upgraded my parity drive to a 3TB drive. I had planned to use my old 1.5TB parity drive as a data drive, but it failed the SMART test. So I bought a new 3TB drive and installed it. After installing the drive my BIOS changed the boot order on me. So I fixed it and began the pre-clear process. Last weekend I had an issue with my air conditioner and decided to shut the server down as the inside temps were upper 80s during the afternoon. With the AC now fixed I turned the server back on, but it didn't boot. Went back into the BIOS and the boot order was changed again. The new drive becomes the default for some reason. I have 5 drives installed:

 

1. 8GB Lexar flash drive

2. 3TB Toshiba

3. 3TB WD

4. 1.5TB WD

5. 500GB WD

 

All five drives are listed under hard drives in my BIOS. So I have to set the hard drive order with the flash drive first. Then the boot sequence can be set for the flash drive.

 

Any ideas on what is happening?

It's not uncommon for a BIOS to be "helpful" when a new drive is installed and set itself to boot from the new drive. If you are having trouble getting it to stick after you set it back, then maybe your CMOS battery is failing. Is your BIOS keeping time OK? If not that would be another symptom of the battery.

For some BIOSes it may help to set the type of device for the USB stick as "removable disk" instead of "hard disk". Then make the first boot option your removable disk ahead of any hard disk.

 

It's not uncommon for a BIOS to be "helpful" when a new drive is installed and set itself to boot from the new drive. If you are having trouble getting it to stick after you set it back, then maybe your CMOS battery is failing. Is your BIOS keeping time OK? If not that would be another symptom of the battery.

 

I'll check out the battery. Although doesn't the battery only come into play when there is no power? To my knowledge the server had AC power the whole time.

For some BIOSes it may help to set the type of device for the USB stick as "removable disk" instead of "hard disk". Then make the first boot option your removable disk ahead of any hard disk.

 

I'm not sure how to change that, but I'll look into it. Thanks.

The Motherboard on my Media server sets any new hard drive as the boot drive.  I have checked the BIOS to see if there is anyway to prevent that from happening and I couldn't find one.  I know it is going to happen so if I put a new drive in, I have a monitor and keyboard connected so I can jump into the BIOS and change it back.

 

I suppose that someone at the manufacturer must have decided that if anyone installs a new hard drive they must want to use it to boot from so they hard coded it in!

The Motherboard on my Media server sets a new hard drive as the boot drive.  I have checked the BIOS to see if there is anyway to prevent that from happening and I couldn't find one.  I know it is going to happen so if I put a new drive in, I have a monitor and keyboard connected so I can jump into the BIOS and change it back.

 

I suppose that someone at the manufacturer must have decided that if anyone installs a new hard drive they must want to use it to boot from so they hard coded it in!

 

If it only happened when installing a new drive I think I could handle that. But it seems to happen when I shutdown the server too. Of course I don't plan to shut it down very much. I still need to check a few things but I am in the middle of a pre-clear so it has to wait.

If it only happened when installing a new drive I think I could handle that. But it seems to happen when I shutdown the server too. Of course I don't plan to shut it down very much. I still need to check a few things but I am in the middle of a pre-clear so it has to wait.

If the boot order changes when you have made no change then this suggests something wrong at the motherboard level.  Have you checked you have the latest BIOS?  Does the CMOS battery need replacing?