Hi,

 

I'm in the process of migrating my unraid system to a new motherboard.  I ran into a snag when booting off the USB key.  It boots up fine, but it cannot mount the configuration directories needed to run unraid.  After taking a closer look, it appears that running the usb key in 2.0 mode fails.  I was getting some errors about EHCI USB restarting (don't remember the exact error).  If I plugged my key into a USB 1.0 hub first, everything loads as expected (just a big slower).  But, I then run into another problem where the Unraid software doesn't detect the USB GUID.  It detects the hubs GUID and gives me an error saying that the keys don't match. 

 

Unfortunately, this motherboard doesn't have an option in BIOS to disable USB 2.0 (ECS G33T-M2).  Ugh.

 

So, finally, my question:  Is there a way to unload USB 2.0 support from UnRAID so that everything runs in 1.0 speed?  I tried modprobe -r ehci_hcd but it doesn't seem like that is loaded.

 

Thanks,

 

-leonowski

The first thing I would try is a completely different USB port.  For example, if you were plugging in back, try a USB port on the front of the machine.  Perhaps a very different port will be using a different header, that will be more compatible.

 

Can you provide the exact error message you are seeing?

The error is "USB 2-5:  reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2"

 

Then the mount attempt fail and I get the error:  "special device /dev/disk/by-label/UNRAID does not exist

And so, network.cfg doesn't load.

 

If I change the usb key to different ports, the number at the start of the error message changes (USB "2-5" in my example above changes if I change usb ports.  I assume these are some sort of port identifiers.

 

I'll try some various boot options to see if I can get this working somehow.  I guess this is what I get for going cheap on the motherboard.  Once unraid boots up in 1.0 mode, everything seems to work fine - ethernet, all my disks are detected.  I really don't care if this thing runs in USB 1.0 mode.  I just can't believe that this bios doesn't have an option to disable usb 2.0.

I also just went through the process of trying the internal headers.  They all have the same problem. 

 

I did notice that the USB light goes off once I get to the unraid login screen.  It seems like the USB device is being unloaded for some reason.  If I plug it back in, the light stays on.  Is there a manual way to get things working after I log into unraid?  I mean, are there commands i can run to mount what i need mounted and load the configs I need?

Well, I got this to work with a little manual usb unplugging and plugging at the right time during bootup.  lol.

 

After bzimage loads and a bunch of other things start to appear on the screen, I see the light turn off on the usb key.  If I unplug and replug the USB device before the "Mounting non-root local filesystems:" message appears (and the USB light stays on), everything loads up fine.  Yay.  I guess I'll live with this for now until I find a real solution.

 

A possible solution would be to load and unload the USB device (or restart USB somehow?) before the USB file system is mounted.  Does anyone know if this is possible?

 

Does "ECS" stand for "Extremely Cheap System"? 

 

Thanks again,

 

-Leonowski

I don't think the reset message is an error.

 

Try something even simpler, make sure that the flash drive has a volume label of UNRAID, exactly 6 capital letters.

 

If that's not it, check the USB Flash Drive Preparation page.  It may just need the flash drive formatted a bit differently, or some other tip from that page.

Yup - everything with the flash preparation is correct.  I tried multiple flash drives and they all do the same thing.  If I plug the same keys back into my old motherboard, the everything works as expected.

 

I have seen this same exact problem in Mac OS X running on generic Intel hardware.  On Mac OS X, there are some kernel extensions that have been developed to fix the problem (USB EHCI fixes).

 

I guess I could find a USB 1.0 flash drive somewhere out there.  I think I have 1 more free unraid key waiting for me because I bought the original unraid product.

 

The problem isn't really with booting.  It boots fine.  The problem is that the USB device gets disconnected at some point and then the USB file system cannot mount.  Linux loads correctly and I can log in.

Does the BIOS have an option for "Legacy USB Support?"  Some vendors label USB1.0 in that way.

It does, actually.  I thought this setting affects USB 2.0 as well.  There are three options in the BIOS for it:

 

-Disabled

-Enabled

-Auto

 

Setting it to disabled completely disables the USB ports on the motherboard.  Ugh.  Setting it to Enabled or Auto allows the USB port to work, but I run into the problems described in my original post.  It might be best to add this motherboard to the list of "stay away from hardware" in the Wiki:

 

ECS G33T-M2

 

-leonowski

Are you using the  standby +5 volts for your usb? 

You may try changing your jumper so you are not using the standby supply.

Hi All,

 

Thank you for your suggestions.  I finally got this working.  Here is what I did:

 

1.  I installed the Plop bootloader on my cache disk (it doesn't overwrite your reiserFS partition).

2.  I set up the BIOS to disable legacy USB support.

3.  I set up the BIOS to boot the cache disk so that plop loads first.

4.  I configured the plop boot loader to boot from the USB drive automatically (after a 10 second countdown).

 

This finally gets everything working and gets around the issue of the motherboard borking things with USB booting.  Again, to summarize the problem -

 

The BIOS will not let me directly boot from the USB key unless I turn on legacy USB support.  Unfortuantely, turning on legacy USB support makes the boot time ultra slow and then I get EHCI errors once linux starts loading.  Before the solution I posted above, I had to replug my USB key after the LED light went out to fix the EHCI error.  With the Plop bootloader, I can get around that!  Yay!  Unfortunately, I still wouldn't recommend this motherboard - WOL doesn't work.    Sheesh!

 

Plop bootloader:  http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html

 

I never used plop bootloader before.  It's pretty neat!  It might be the best kicker to use with Unraid since you can install it on your cache drive and you don't need to use floppy or CD.  You just need a BIOS that can boot a hard drive (which I think all BIOSes can do!).

I have added both threads on PLoP to the Topical Index so that others searching for it will be able to find it a little easier.