Well, I tried 4.0b9 over 3.0 (overwriting bzimage bzroot syslinux.cfg per the readme).  When I boot I get part way through boot and the last few lines are:

 

RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0

RAMDISK: Incomplete write (-28 != 32768) 4194304

RAMDISK: ran out of compressed data

Invalid compressed format (err=1)

VFS: Mounted root (msdos filesystem) readonly.

Freeing usused kernel memory: 172k freed

Warning: unable to open an initial console.

Kernel panic - not syncing: No init found.  Try passing init= option to kernel.

 

Ideas?

How did you copy the bzimage, bzroot, syslinux.cfg files to the Flash?  It looks like the files didn't get written fully.

 

How much RAM is in your server?

Plugged the drive into my computer, drag and drop the files from the extracted rar, eject, remove and plug into server.  Tried it twice and tried redownloading the rar and copying a third time.  512mB in the server.

Tried formatting the drive, copying only the files from the rar over.  Same error.

You might need to use the hp utility and do a complete reformat of the usb drive.

I suppose I could try that, but I don't see why it would help.  It boots off the usb fine already (I think I even used the HP thing).  And if i copy 3.0 back over it even completes booting.

The messages you see should not be output at all by 4.0b9.  I suggest you re-format the Flash - just reformat using Windows, re-run syslinux, & re-copy the 4.0b9 release files.  Preserve your config/super.dat file so that you won't have to regenerate parity.

Tried another usb stick I got back recently and it booted fine on that.  It didn't show up on the network though so I imagine there's no support for the onboard NIC and SATA (there wasn't in 3.0, you built me a custom one).  It's a K8TM/K8MM (MS-6741 v1.x) VIA K8T800/K8M800 and VIA VT8237 chipsets.    I have another board I was thinking about switching to, an Asus K8N-E Deluxe which is an nForce3 250Gb/Marvell gigabit chipset.  Would that be better supported?

Well the Asus board networking isn't working.  Nor tossing in a 3com 3c905 card or a Linksys LNE100TX.

Please try 4.0-beta10.

 

Download.

 

Still no network connectivity.  Last two lines of boot:

 

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf: line 18: /boot/config/network.cfg: No such file or directory

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf: line 19: /var/tmp/network.cfg: No such file or directory

 

Still no network connectivity.  Last two lines of boot:

 

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf: line 18: /boot/config/network.cfg: No such file or directory

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf: line 19: /var/tmp/network.cfg: No such file or directory

 

Did you set the volume label on the new USB flash drive to "UNRAID"  (withhout the quotes)

 

It appears as if the flash drive did not get mounted so the /boot folder is empty.

 

Joe L.

Ah.  Indeed I did not.  Doh!  Works fine now.  In my defense 3.0 was booting just fine with no label at all.  Now to see if I can hook up drives to the promise card without errors.

Ah.  Indeed I did not.  Doh!  Works fine now.  In my defense 3.0 was booting just fine with no label at all.  Now to see if I can hook up drives to the promise card without errors.

The new version of unRaid uses the volume label on the flash drive to find the correct 'scsi' device to mount at /boot.

It  was much easier when SATA drives were not supported.  now, with their support, the device assignment is unpredictable depending on your specific hardware/motherboard.

On 3.0 it used to be that the flash drive was always /dev/sda.  With 4.0 and SATA controllers it could be something else and a hard-disk assigned /dev/sda.

 

you are forgiven... 

Heh, thanks for the explanation and forgiveness!  So far so good, no errors reading or writing several gigs, so I'm rebuilding my last 300gb on a 500gb attached to the promise card.  Thank you Joe and Limetech for the help!