I've just completed constructing my first unRAID setup, and I'm having boot issues. The machine does not boot from the flash drive. I have the sinking feeling that perhaps my motherboard does not support booting from a flash drive, as "flash drive" (or similar) is not an option in the bios boot sequence. Is there anything I should try before I give up hope?

Does it have option to boot off a USB ZIP drive?

If it does, then read this: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/booting-linux-from-usb-zip-on-older-systems/

The only options are hard drive, CD/DVD, and floppy. I'm going to try some things I've been reading in the FAQ's/troubleshooting pages/tips, but I honestly have no idea where to start.

The only options are hard drive, CD/DVD, and floppy. I'm going to try some things I've been reading in the FAQ's/troubleshooting pages/tips, but I honestly have no idea where to start.

You can boot off a floppy, or a CD, or even a small hard-drive.  Many have done it.

See here in the wiki... many links to kicker disk threads: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=UnRAID_Topical_Index#Kicker_disks

another possibility http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2407.0

 

 

Looking into creating a kicker disc.

 

So what exactly does the kicker disc do? From what I'm reading it looks like it boots the computer and then tells the computer to access the flash drive. Is this correct? Or is the kicker disc the end of the story? Does everything run off the disc?

Looking into creating a kicker disc.

 

So what exactly does the kicker disc do? From what I'm reading it looks like it boots the computer and then tells the computer to access the flash drive.

Is this correct?

Yes, that is correct.

You will need a USB flash drive labeled as UNRAID if you wish to use more than the "free" version that supports 3 disks (2 data + 1 parity)

You do not need a USB drive at all if all you will be using is the free version of unRAID, since the volume with that label can be a hard disk that is not part of the array.

Or is the kicker disc the end of the story? Does everything run off the disc?

Basically, once booted from the kicker disk it is no longer used.  unRAID runs in memory and reads and writes its configuration files to the volume with the UNRAID label.  That disk volume must be a fat, or fat32 file-system and will be mounted at /boot once unRAID finishes its boot sequence.  It is not necessary for the actual boot-loaded to be on that volume, but it must exist so its configuration files can be found.  If it is not found with the UNRIAD label it will not be mounted.  If it is not mounted, the configuration files for networking will not be found, and if they are not found you will not get a network connection to your LAN.

 

So, you can boot from a small IDE hard disk that is not part of the array, but labeled UNRAID and formatted as FAT.

Or, you can boot from a floppy, and then once booted it will find the USB drive labeled as UNFAID, mount it at /boot, and find the unRAID configuration files.

 

The links I gave earlier have lots more detail.  I've never needed to do this for unRAID, but I did boot early versions of Slackware linux from a floppy disk on an old 386 based computer (many) years ago.  Once booted it used the alternate partitions on the hard disk to run Linux.

 

Joe L.

So, you can boot from a small IDE hard disk that is not part of the array, but labeled UNRAID and formatted as FAT.

unRAID will mount as boot the volume labelled UNRAID.

If you are using a plus or pro version, you don't want the HD to be mounted but the usb key (because of the flash GUID).

Therefore, you will labelled the flash key UNRAID and whatever you want the HD (mine was called UNBOOT).

 

I looked more closely at my bios settings, and it turns out that the flashdrive actually was listed under the hard drives. So it turns out the error message was not due to the computer not seeing the flash drive. I did notice, however, that when I extracted the unRAID server software using ExtractNow, I would get errors. 7zip didn't give me any errors. I redownloaded the server software. I still get error messages in ExtractNow, but now I'm able to boot. I'm still rather nervous about the errors. Can someone give me the md5 checksum for unRAID Server 4.5.zip? The md5 checksum for my downloaded copy is:

 

b01396e2249251400e045f0678cf9504

I looked more closely at my bios settings, and it turns out that the flashdrive actually was listed under the hard drives. So it turns out the error message was not due to the computer not seeing the flash drive. I did notice, however, that when I extracted the unRAID server software using ExtractNow, I would get errors. 7zip didn't give me any errors. I redownloaded the server software. I still get error messages in ExtractNow, but now I'm able to boot. I'm still rather nervous about the errors. Can someone give me the md5 checksum for unRAID Server 4.5.zip? The md5 checksum for my downloaded copy is:

 

b01396e2249251400e045f0678cf9504

See here....

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Release_Notes#MD5SUMs

 

Looks good.

Great! I guess I'm good to go! Thanks for all the help, guys!