unRAID Not Booting


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My unRAID system has been working perfectly for a little over a year.  And just lately whenever the power goes off or I have to reboot the server it has trouble coming back on.

 

Symptoms when I try and boot the server......it will do one of the 3 things.

 

1.  After going through bios and detecting all of the raid cards it will just sit in looks like DOS (like a black screen with a flashing bar).

2.  It will go into unRAID and get to the boot page (where it counts down to either boot into MEMtest or unRAID), and then it will start to boot into unRAID where it shows that "periods" as its loading bzimage (i think).

3.  When getting to the unRAID boot menu after a few seconds, it will say "Disk Boot Failure" or something along those lines.

3.  Or it will boot into unRAID and everything is fine.

 

I would say that I have to reboot the server about 20 times before it will carry out booting.  I tried to explain the problem as best as I could because I don't have any screen shots because I don't want to restart the server and go though that again.

 

My initial guess for the problem would be the Flash Drive is failing. Because the symptoms sounds like that same as described in this thread:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=4772.0

 

Also, ever since this started happening my "flash" share is still there, but there are no files in the share.  So I cannot access any of the system files (unless I take the flash drive out of course).

 

 

I guess my main question would be, do you guys think this a failing flash drive also?  And what steps do I need to do while my unRAID server is working and on to keep my same configuration so I can just transfer my shares and settings to a new flash drive.

 

This is what I did:

 

1. Printed a pdf of my pages (Main, Devices, Settings, etc), so I have those.

 

 

I read that I need to backup my "config" file on my flash drive, but I can't do that until I shut it down and remove my flash drive.  So I wanted to check with guys to see if there is anything else I need to do while it is on.

 

Also, I guess I should check with Tom to see if I can get a replacement flash drive or get a key for a new one.

 

Thanks for your help,

 

Matt

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1. Run memtest overnight, get that possibility out of the way.

 

2. Check whether your BIOS can retain its settings over a powerdown.  Your CMOS battery may have died.

 

 

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

I booted into bios and the Flash Drive was the first boot device.  So I restarted and booted in the bios again and the second time I went into the drive, the bios was not recognizing it.  So then I just restarted it again and the third time it did recognize it.  Maybe I should try a different USB port to rule that out?

 

I also just started MemTest and will let that run to make sure its not the memory.  I will also run out and get a new CMOS battery just incase.

 

From the bios not seeing the Flash Drive sometimes, do you think that might lean towards the flash drive being bad? Or could that still be a battery issue?

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I will also run out and get a new CMOS battery just incase.

May not be needed. Check it first: Go to BIOS, change some setting, save, powerdown. Fully unplug the power cord from the wall.

Wait 5 minutes. Then power back up to BIOS, and see if it remembers the new setting. If it does, the battery is probably still good.

 

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I will also run out and get a new CMOS battery just incase.

May not be needed. Check it first: Go to BIOS, change some setting, save, powerdown. Fully unplug the power cord from the wall.

Wait 5 minutes. Then power back up to BIOS, and see if it remembers the new setting. If it does, the battery is probably still good.

 

 

Ok, will do that right now and get back with you.

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Sorry it took so long, but had to keep rebooting to get back to unRAID to start the memTest again.  But I changed a setting in the BIOS that wasn't default and left it unplugged for about 10 min and started it back up and the setting was still there.  So I take it that it isn't the battery.

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Any visible leaks around capacitors on the motherboard?

 

 

Didn't see anything.

Just shots in the dark.

 

While memtest is running, it is safe to unplug the flash disk from the server, and let memtest continue running overnight.

In the mean time, plug in the flash disk in a windows computer and run scandisk on it, see if it will find any errors.

Remember to "safely eject" the flash disk from the windows computer when done.

 

Also, does your server have other USB ports?  If so, try using a different one next time.

 

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Any visible leaks around capacitors on the motherboard?

 

 

Didn't see anything.

Just shots in the dark.

 

While memtest is running, it is safe to unplug the flash disk from the server, and let memtest continue running overnight.

In the mean time, plug in the flash disk in a windows computer and run scandisk on it, see if it will find any errors.

Remember to "safely eject" the flash disk from the windows computer when done.

 

Also, does your server have other USB ports?  If so, try using a different one next time.

 

 

Will do.  Yes, my motherboard has another USB port.  I will run Disk Check and use another USB port when I plug it back in.

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While memtest is running, it is safe to unplug the flash disk from the server, and let memtest continue running overnight.

In the mean time, plug in the flash disk in a windows computer and run scandisk on it, see if it will find any errors.

Remember to "safely eject" the flash disk from the windows computer when done.

 

Also, does your server have other USB ports?  If so, try using a different one next time.

 

 

Ok, well good news (I think).  I stopped the memtest and took the USB Disk out and ran Disk Check on it two and both times it did not find any errors.  So I put the USB in a different port and it booted to unRAID, so then I shut it down and tried it again and it booted into unRAID again.  So I did this about 5 times to make sure and every time it booted into unRAID.  And also, my "flash" share is working again.  So I am guess it is a bad USB port, what do you think?

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