<Newbie> NAS Data Disk Cannot Boot System

[BobCV]

Hi all, newbie here.  I searched the forum for this issue with no success.   My apologies if I err.

 

Just downloaded 6.3.2 to a Sandisk Ultra Fit USB drive which had been formatted as FAT32 with a label of UNRAID, successfully ran the "make_bootable.bat" file (yes, as administrator) and text on the screen implied that this process was successful.

 

When booting the system I immediately get the message "This is a NAS data disk and cannot boot system.  System halted." (No UNRAID boot menu).  The bios was configured to boot first from USB then from DVD (confirmed that the drive was empty).  If I configure the bios to only boot from USB and nothing else, I get no message and it immediately opens the bios (there are no other OS or formatted drives in the system).

 

I figure that it has to be something with the usb boot drive, but I can successfully install FreeNAS on this same SanDisk drive and it will successfully boot.

 

Any suggestions?

[ashman70]

That error seems to be  FreeNAS error. I would format that USB flash drive first, and be thorough to make sure there is no boot loader or partitions left behind. Then install unRAID on it again and try and boot with it again and let us know how it goes. Or  even better, if you have another USB flash drive lying around unused, try using it.

[gubbgnutten]

FAT32 with a label of UNRAID sounds right. How large is the Sandisk? Is it MBR or GPT?

[BobCV]

2 hours ago, ashman70 said:

That error seems to be  FreeNAS error. I would format that USB flash drive first, and be thorough to make sure there is no boot loader or partitions left behind. Then install unRAID on it again and try and boot with it again and let us know how it goes. Or  even better, if you have another USB flash drive lying around unused, try using it.

 

Can't disagree with your thought since I did see this same sort of error message on the FreeNAS forum sight.  However, I did perform a full repartition and full format of the disk before installing UNRAID.  Since they are cheap, a new flash drive may be a good option, but I do not have one laying around.

[BobCV]

2 hours ago, gubbgnutten said:

FAT32 with a label of UNRAID sounds right. How large is the Sandisk? Is it MBR or GPT?

 

It's a 16Gb version and I believe it _was_ GPT when purchased.  However, with my subsequent reparitioning and formatting, I suspect that this is honked up.  When it was set up for FreeNAS, there was a 1Gb partition that was identified by Windows as an EFI system partition and a 14Gb unknown partition.  After repartitioning and formatting as FAT32, it is simply identified as an Active, Primary Partition.  So I think you possibly are on to something there.

 

I'm not totally familiar with GUID formatting, but is the Windows Diskpart tool able to perform this or is there another tool out there I can obtain to "fix" this?

Okay, I was able to figure out out to convert it to a GPT partition, so the disk shows up in Windows as a EFI system partition and the diskpart tool states that it is identified as gpt.  I reformatted, reinstalled, reran the make_bootable, but still no joy -- same error, still puzzled.

Edited March 26, 2017 by BobCV

[BobCV]

Okay.. Bought a new 16Gb SanDisk Cruzer Fit, fresh out of the container, formatted FAT32 with the UNRAID label, ran the make_bootable file as administrtor, and booted with the exact same result ("This is a NAS data disk and cannot boot system.  System halted.").  I also noted that, contrary to my earlier comment, that this message also showed up when no flash drive was installed, so I began to suspect that this was a message that has been somehow embedded into the installed SDDs/HDDs based on my earlier FreeNAS installation -- no formatting or configuring -- that I can recall .

 

Fortunately, my MB has a F11 keystroke to select boot devices at power up.  Here is where, in addition to selecting from the installed SDDs and HDDs, there are two SanDisk boot options: "UEFI: SanDisk, Partition 1", and "USB: SanDisk:)  The first failed to boot, but the second succeeded.  So I have now discovered that I can boot, just not in an automated fashion.  i also again confirmed that, without modifying the bios from where it is currently configured, I can boot from the same SanDisk flash drive but with FreeNAS installed and boot just fine with no manual intervention.  But I just can't seem to do this with the UNRAID configured flash.  So I've ruled out my prior thought that it was a flash drive problem.

 

I tried modifying the bios USB settings for legacy compatibility for Enabled/Disabled/UEFI Only modes, but only the default Enabled mode worked at all.  FYI, the MB is an Asrock Z270 Taichi

 

So far, I have successfully installed a trial license, configured my storage shares, and installed some useful plugins -- and it all seems to work just fine.  But no hands free booting.  And that will be a problem.

 

Any theories/thoughts/help??

[burtjr]

What motherboard do you have? From the research I've done it could be how you have it set to boot in the bios. Are you sure the bios is setup to boot from the USB thumb drive first?

[itimpi]

It is also worth pointing out that the bios must be set to boot unRAID in legacy mode - unRAID does not support booting in UEFI mode.

[BobCV]

3 hours ago, burtjr said:

What motherboard do you have? From the research I've done it could be how you have it set to boot in the bios. Are you sure the bios is setup to boot from the USB thumb drive first?

 

3 hours ago, itimpi said:

It is also worth pointing out that the bios must be set to boot unRAID in legacy mode - unRAID does not support booting in UEFI mode.

 

The MB is the Asrock Z270 Taichi, the bios is set to Legacy USB mode enabled.  Since it does successfully boot from USB with the FreeRaid stick, I can only assume that I have it properly configured to boot from USB.  However, I will be contacting the Asrock support team to make sure I'm doing it right.

 

Thanks for the assist

[Squid]

Try disabling secure boot in the bios.  Then hopefully the USB stick will appear in the boot order as USB: Sandisk

[BobCV]

18 minutes ago, Squid said:

Try disabling secure boot in the bios.  Then hopefully the USB stick will appear in the boot order as USB: Sandisk

 

Not exactly sure what I did, but previously, the bios boot order was only visually showing SDD/HDD options.  When I just now rebooted into the bios, the same SDD/HDD options were still there, but so were the UEFI and standard USB booting options.  I simply reordered them so that the USB was first, then CD, followed by HDD and UEFI. and that worked -- we're good to go!  BTW, there was a secure boot option (not enabled) I could find no specific USB secure boot options.

 

Whatever I did to the bios to make the UEFI and USB appear must have been last night because they weren't there the last time I went in yesterday.  .. Oh well  , we're good now.  Thanks all to the prompt replies, I really appreciate them.

Edited April 1, 2017 by BobCV