1 minute ago, Frank1940 said:

Have a look at this post.  Your situation may not be identical but it may give you a clue.

 

    https://lime-technology.com/forums/topic/70095-unraid-os-version-650-stable-release-available/?page=8&tab=comments#comment-644097

 

I suspect the changes made to allow UEFI booting is going to be a issue for a while.

 

Thanks, will take a look at that.    Is this just with 6.5.0 though?    I am trying to get 6.4.1 running and that's what i have been downloading / choosing in the usb creator tool.   My config is all configured to 6.4.1 etc so wanted to get that up and running before upgrading to 6.5.0.

 

I'm honestly not 100% sure whether my board supports EFI etc?   Should I be enabling EFI when creating the drive or not? I can't find a concise answer about whether my board supports it or not.

I looked up your MB using google and evidently its design is now about 12 years old.  That is also about the time when UEFI was beginning its move to main stream.  I seem to recall that it had some teething issues.  You MB MAY have a UEFI boot option and it may or may not work cleanly.  I would suggest the you get a MB manual and see what it says.  You can also google 'UEFI, MB manufacturer and model, boot issues' and see if you find anything that way.  

 

Now, I can also recall that when I first setup unRAID on a VERY cheap AMD based Linux desktop computer had a MB introduced in about 2000 that I had at the time.  That thing had more ways to boot from a UBS drive than you could stake a stick at and only one (or possibly, two) would work with a USB Flash Drive.  I seem to recall that the obvious ones would not work.  (Something like USB floppy was required...)  The point I am trying to make is, don't assume that you have specify that the UBS flash drive be recognized as a hard drive for it to boot.  The exact opposite  may be true!  Read that manual and see what ways the BIOS will recognize that flash drive and try each one.  It would be nice if every MB BIOS were identical in how it menu and options were presented but, again, the exact opposite is true.  Even the same manufacturer may have a different BIOS menu setups for motherboards that were released in the same time period. 

28 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

That thing had more ways to boot from a UBS drive than you could stake a stick at and only one (or possibly, two) would work with a USB Flash Drive.  I seem to recall that the obvious ones would not work.  (Something like USB floppy was required...) 

My first build was like that, though I have always used Intel. I had to tell it the flash drive was a floppy.

My first ASUS motherboard had the nasty habit to change boot sequence each time a new disk was added. I needed to reselect the 'USB' device again after I expanded the array.

 

1 hour ago, Frank1940 said:

I looked up your MB using google and evidently its design is now about 12 years old.  That is also about the time when UEFI was beginning its move to main stream.  I seem to recall that it had some teething issues.  You MB MAY have a UEFI boot option and it may or may not work cleanly.  I would suggest the you get a MB manual and see what it says.  You can also google 'UEFI, MB manufacturer and model, boot issues' and see if you find anything that way.  

 

Now, I can also recall that when I first setup unRAID on a VERY cheap AMD based Linux desktop computer had a MB introduced in about 2000 that I had at the time.  That thing had more ways to boot from a UBS drive than you could stake a stick at and only one (or possibly, two) would work with a USB Flash Drive.  I seem to recall that the obvious ones would not work.  (Something like USB floppy was required...)  The point I am trying to make is, don't assume that you have specify that the UBS flash drive be recognized as a hard drive for it to boot.  The exact opposite  may be true!  Read that manual and see what ways the BIOS will recognize that flash drive and try each one.  It would be nice if every MB BIOS were identical in how it menu and options were presented but, again, the exact opposite is true.  Even the same manufacturer may have a different BIOS menu setups for motherboards that were released in the same time period. 

 

I've been trying so many different combinations of things and it still won't start up.   What I have been getting more of is just a flashing cursor at the top left of the screen.

 

I'm wondering if it has booted from the drive correctly and then something is going wrong inside Unraid? What do you think @limetech ?   No matter how long I leave it it just carries on like that.

 

 

I do actually think it's booting from the USB drive ok. I've never had issues with it booting from USB when i used this board previously.   I think it's the setup of the drive or the software. As stated, it boots from the drive into an Ubuntu live system perfectly first time. No issues whatsoever.

 

 

Edited March 20, 20188 yr by rctneil

Normally what you get is a boot menu allowing you to boot into memtest or a few different unRAID bootup configurations. You aren't even getting the boot menu.

Since I have a related question I thought I'd post it in this thread instead of creating a new one.  Apologies to the OP if I've hijacked.

 

I too have a trial key running 6.4.1.  I've pre-cleared all my disks and created the array.  I have no data on the array or docker containers - just plugins.

When I purchase a paid license key I want to install it on a new USB stick running 6.5.

 

Will the "virgin" 6.5 USB stick recognize the drives in my array and assign them correctly? e.g. I have 2 parity drives and 8 data drives.

Or should I copy the super.dat file to my 6.5 USB stick?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

17 minutes ago, bwnautilus said:

Or should I copy the super.dat file to my 6.5 USB stick?

If you just want to keep the assignments copying super.dat is enough, if you want to keep all the previous settings copy the complete config folder and just add the new key.

2 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

If you just want to keep the assignments copying super.dat is enough, if you want to keep all the previous settings copy the complete config folder and just add the new key.

 

Thanks.  Should I grab a copy of super.dat when the array is started or stopped?

Stopped.

Right,   Just manually made a new drive with 6.5.1 and EFI boot selected. Tried it on a Samsung RV511 laptop and it boots.   Does this mean it's my hardware?  Apart from failing to boot into Unraid, my system does seem to be acting normally.   I am at a total loss. I have even been pricing out new hardware but I honestly really don;t want new hardware right now if I can help it.   That would be best a bit further down the road.

A long shot, but have you tried disconnecting all hard disks so that the only thing connected that could possibly be bootable is your USB flash device?

 

Just now, John_M said:

A long shot, but have you tried disconnecting all hard disks so that the only thing connected that could possibly be bootable is your USB flash device?

 

 

Yes, I tried that a while ago. No luck. Thanks for the suggestion though.

One last suggestion. I see you've tried more recent versions, but have you tried making an unRAID version 6.3.5 boot flash? It's the oldest release available for download.

 

I haven't. Might try that.

Please do. As far as I remember it only works with legacy boot (though I may be wrong!).

2 minutes ago, John_M said:

though I may be wrong!

You're right

Just a quick update.   Using the same drive as I tried on the Samsung RV511. No changes whatsoever. Just unplugged from the laptop and plugged into another machine. This time with an Asus P5Q mobo. It fails on that too.

 

I just get the error shown in the photo.

I've just tried to boot unRAID 6.5.0 on the oldest 64-bit motherboard I have (an ECS GS7610 Ultra with Athlon 3000+) and I got the same result. But I know it will boot earlier unRAID versions. I've had 6.0 running on it.

1 hour ago, John_M said:

I've just tried to boot unRAID 6.5.0 on the oldest 64-bit motherboard I have (an ECS GS7610 Ultra with Athlon 3000+) and I got the same result. But I know it will boot earlier unRAID versions. I've had 6.0 running on it.

 

Hmmm interesting.   I'm practically out of ideas now I fail to get it running on one other machine but works fine on another one.    How on earth is this possible?

I have a wild thought.  Download version 6.3.5 and create a USB drive using that version see if it boots.  If it does boot, then copy over the bz* files from the version that you wnat to use and see if that boots.  

 

If that doesn't work, let me look for an earlier version.  (I use a UBS-to-SD_Card adapter with a valid GUID.)  I could e-mail you a copy of it.  

Just now, Frank1940 said:

I have a wild thought.  Download version 6.3.5 and create a USB drive using that version see if it boots.  If it does boot, then copy over the bz* files from the version that you wnat to use and see if that boots.  

 

If that doesn't work, let me look for an earlier version.  (I use a UBS-to-SD_Card adapter with a valid GUID.)  I could e-mail you a copy of it.  

 

I'll give that a shot. Most probably over this weekend.  I'll get back to you. Thanks

1 hour ago, rctneil said:

How on earth is this possible?

 

I'd guess that it's something about old hardware and a new syslinux.

 

Just a quick question.   I am going to test out the ideas posted above (hopefully tommorrow) but as I know that my hardware well and truely needs updating I have started thinking about some components and put together a list linked below.  Can someone give this a run over and see if this all looks suitable. My aims for using Unraid is to have it as a file server, a time machine backup destination, a Plex media server (pretty much solely a single stream, only me here) and quite possibly a Windows 10 VM.

 

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/rctneil/saved/7wDRGX

 

I will get back to you all with results of tomorrows tests too.

 

Thanks

What will you be using the Windows 10 VM for?  (Simple web browsing and Office Apps - should be OK.  Video editing, Game playing not so good)