April 12, 201016 yr This will be my first unRaid box, and I'm looking forward to it. I've only read nice things. Only problem is I can't get my box to boot up. I have installed the OS on to a 4GB Kingston drive, following the instructions to a tee. I am running an older mobo (Asus A7V with a Socket A AMD), and at the moment I've got a 120GB IDE drive connected. I've updated the bios (which was almost painstaking), and now all I get when I boot the machine up is "PRESS A KEY TO REBOOT". I'm 99% positive this is booting off the USB Key; the DVD-ROM would autostart UBCD and the harddrive should start up GRUB. I can't, for the life of me, figure it out. Any tips or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
April 12, 201016 yr OK, so have you verified that you have the options in you BIOS Boot section to boot from the following: Boot from USB HDD Boot from USB CDROM Boot from USB ZIP Boot from USB Floppy? I've seen in some BIOS's you have to enable all of the above to get a bootable USB drive to actually boot up. Also, you'll know if your USB drive is booting up if you see on the screen that the 'unRAID' boot menu with a blue menu bar to either boot into unRAID OS or 'memtest' option. If you're seeing this, you're in luck. The 'bzroot' and 'bzimage' files should boot off seeing a series of ............................... and the OS starts up. If you're not seeing this at all and you've verified that you have the USB boot options enabled and have set for USB to be the first boot option over CDROM/ IDE/SATA disks, etc... I would say that you're USB drive hasn't been prepared properly. To prepare it, you must do the following: 1). Download the 'syslinux.exe' file and save to C:\temp or something 2). Format the USB drive as a FAT file system, FAT32 will work too (bigger USB drives format to this FS by default) 3). Verify the USB drive letter, in this example, say F:\ 4). Go to Start > Run > type: cmd 5). Make sure you're in C:\temp folder, ie: 'cd c:\temp' and execute the following command: syslinux -ma F: 6). Extract and copy all of the unRAID OS files onto your USB drive 7). Insert into a USB port, power on your server and fingers crossed. Hope this helps.
April 12, 201016 yr Only problem is I can't get my box to boot up. I have installed the OS on to a 4GB Kingston drive, following the instructions to a tee. I am running an older mobo (Asus A7V with a Socket A AMD), and at the moment I've got a 120GB IDE drive connected. I've updated the bios (which was almost painstaking), and now all I get when I boot the machine up is "PRESS A KEY TO REBOOT". I'm 99% positive this is booting off the USB Key; the DVD-ROM would autostart UBCD and the harddrive should start up GRUB. Would I be correct if I guess that your BIOS is AMI? If so, try this: Go in BIOS and disable IDE. (No, I've not gone completely mad. Yet.) Doing that may allow you to boot from the USB disk. And if it does, Linux will still correctly recognize and use your IDE disks, regardless of that BIOS setting.
April 12, 201016 yr Author unraided: I do have the ability to boot from USB FDD or USB ZIP. Both are giving me the same error. I followed the USB Boot Key instructions closely. I did everything you mentioned their except the key is formatted to FAT32. Still get the same 'PRESS KEY TO REBOOT'. Makes me think the MB isn't reading what its supposed to. At boot up the mb knows a USB has been inserted, it mentions it at start up. purko: I will give that a try this afternoon and let you know. I have previous tried and disabled all input devices except for the removable USB. I will keep you posted, but I don't think its going to work.
April 12, 201016 yr just to isolate whether the usb or your server is at fault, have you tried to boot from your usb drive from another pc? See how you go.
April 12, 201016 yr Try using the HP Formatting tool described in the Wiki: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=USB_Flash_Drive_Preparation#If_the_Flash_will_not_boot.2C_read_over_the_following_tips Also, if you're on Vista/Win7, make sure you're running syslinux as Administrator.
April 12, 201016 yr purko: ... I don't think its going to work. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5084.msg47100#msg47100
April 13, 201016 yr Author purko: ... I don't think its going to work. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5084.msg47100#msg47100 I tried it, and unfortunately it didn't work. But the good news is, I have made some sort of progress. I swapped out my USB for a different one, reformatted, etc. I have a Sandisk Cruizer 2GB now. I followed the USB-ZIP and USB-FDD tutorial, which seems to get the USB key to boot up. Now I'm faced with one of two errors. 1) The screen displays "boot error" 2) or the screen will display: FDD No Operating System Does anyone have any experience with these errors?
April 13, 201016 yr Try only enabling one of the USB boot options at any given time, and see if that remedies the issue.
April 13, 201016 yr Try the latest syslinux from here: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/syslinux-3.86.zip When you issue the syslinux -m -a X: command, pay attention to what it will say! (substitute the "X:" with the drive letter of the flash disk)
April 13, 201016 yr Author Try the latest syslinux from here: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/syslinux-3.86.zip When you issue the syslinux -m -a X: command, pay attention to what it will say! (substitute the "X:" with the drive letter of the flash disk) I will give the latest version a try. Previously when I ran the syslinux -ma X:, there was no information presented after the command had been run. Is this normal? I would've expected some sort of 'success' instruction.
April 13, 201016 yr If your doing this from a Windows 7 machine you will need to run as administrator
April 13, 201016 yr Hi EpicFail. The 'syslinux.exe' utility will make the drive in question a bootable drive for Linux use, but no it will not display any information to indicate what it did. In the command line, try executing the following: syslinux /? It should give you the list of switches/options which you can use while executing the utility, one of them might be a verbose option (ie: -v or something), in which if it is available should give you a text-based report of what it is doing or done, but I'm not sure whether syslinux actually has such a option. Whether you run syslinux like 'syslinux -ma X:' or 'syslinux -m -a X:' you are really executing the same command and options. purko made a valid point in that you must pay specific attention as to what drive letter that you are using. If you USB drive appears in Windows as 'F:\'m then you must run the command as follows: syslinux -ma F: It is as simple as that. Using the wrong drive will of course not make the USB drive bootable and accidentally selecting one of your Windows partitions or disks which is a bootable volume will render your boot partition for Windows useless, so use with caution. Try the latest syslinux from here: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/syslinux-3.86.zip When you issue the syslinux -m -a X: command, pay attention to what it will say! (substitute the "X:" with the drive letter of the flash disk) I will give the latest version a try. Previously when I ran the syslinux -ma X:, there was no information presented after the command had been run. Is this normal? I would've expected some sort of 'success' instruction.
April 14, 201016 yr Author I think things are starting to come to an end... One last issue. Its looking like the USB key is getting booted too, but after the initial start up of the mobo, I get a black screen with a horizontal scrolling underscore. Any idea what could cause that? Seems like the key is booting as a USB-ZIP.
April 14, 201016 yr Do you see something like the following: ------------------------------- | unRAID OS | ------------------------------- | unRAID | |------------------------------ | memtest | ------------------------------- Count down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and by default it will boot into unRAID, you'll would then see the following: loading bzimage............................................................... loading bzroot... ... ... ... ~ ... and the unraid starts to boot, this is what normally would happen. Would it be possible to send a screen shot/photo of what you see the the screen to get a visual on what you're actually seeing? I think things are starting to come to an end... One last issue. Its looking like the USB key is getting booted too, but after the initial start up of the mobo, I get a black screen with a horizontal scrolling underscore. Any idea what could cause that? Seems like the key is booting as a USB-ZIP.
April 14, 201016 yr Author Do you see something like the following: ------------------------------- | unRAID OS | ------------------------------- | unRAID | |------------------------------ | memtest | ------------------------------- Count down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and by default it will boot into unRAID, you'll would then see the following: loading bzimage............................................................... loading bzroot... ... ... ... ~ ... and the unraid starts to boot, this is what normally would happen. Would it be possible to send a screen shot/photo of what you see the the screen to get a visual on what you're actually seeing? I think things are starting to come to an end... One last issue. Its looking like the USB key is getting booted too, but after the initial start up of the mobo, I get a black screen with a horizontal scrolling underscore. Any idea what could cause that? Seems like the key is booting as a USB-ZIP. Here's the best I could do. Its a pretty sad picture. http://picasaweb.google.ca/lh/photo/3adGulX2crVtatrib6W18z27KgNisZZfX01MJO-onpo?feat=directlink You can see the scrolling underscore.
April 14, 201016 yr We're referring to the blue underscores on the bottom right screen, that seems odd. So to sum up your scenario, rig starts, does POST, BIOS does it's thing, locates your USB drive, tries to boot up and you get these blue underscores. Have you tried as I suggested earlier in the thread to use another PC which as USB Boot options to try your USB drive and see whether it boots up fine? Also, are you using the same USB port for all your attempts with this problem? Thanks.
April 14, 201016 yr Author We're referring to the blue underscores on the bottom right screen, that seems odd. So to sum up your scenario, rig starts, does POST, BIOS does it's thing, locates your USB drive, tries to boot up and you get these blue underscores. Have you tried as I suggested earlier in the thread to use another PC which as USB Boot options to try your USB drive and see whether it boots up fine? Also, are you using the same USB port for all your attempts with this problem? Thanks. Sorry, its a terrible picture. I don't understand the blue underscores either, but they seem to interact with the keyboard. At the moment I don't have a rig to test the boot up of the USB Key. I'm going to try it on a friend rig tomorrow. I've tried all of the attached USB ports and I get the same blue underscores. When I don't connect the USB stick I get 'Disk failure....' So I know the mobo is doing something with the key. Cheers.
April 14, 201016 yr By testing the USB drive, I meant use basically any PC/Laptop which has the USB Boot options at your place, just to see if whether the USB drive or the mobo is at fault. It will not do any harm to any PC you try, so long as you don't muck around with the disks on the web gui when you get it to work. If the USB drive boots on another PC/Laptop just to test, you'll know it works fine if you get the unRAID boot menu option and the bzroot and bzimages thereafter. If you see that on another computer that your USB drive boots up, your USB drive is fine. If you're not even getting that on a computer which has USB Boot function, the USB drive or the preparations for it isn't right. Good luck and tell us how you go. We're referring to the blue underscores on the bottom right screen, that seems odd. So to sum up your scenario, rig starts, does POST, BIOS does it's thing, locates your USB drive, tries to boot up and you get these blue underscores. Have you tried as I suggested earlier in the thread to use another PC which as USB Boot options to try your USB drive and see whether it boots up fine? Also, are you using the same USB port for all your attempts with this problem? Thanks. Sorry, its a terrible picture. I don't understand the blue underscores either, but they seem to interact with the keyboard. At the moment I don't have a rig to test the boot up of the USB Key. I'm going to try it on a friend rig tomorrow. I've tried all of the attached USB ports and I get the same blue underscores. When I don't connect the USB stick I get 'Disk failure....' So I know the mobo is doing something with the key. Cheers.
April 14, 201016 yr Seems like the key is booting as a USB-ZIP. Why so? That's not right. Are you saying that your mobo only supports booting from USB-ZIP and not USB-HARDDISK? If so, see this: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5976.msg56946#msg56946
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.