Possible Supermicro C2SEA problem - won't recognise unRAID as an OS - FIXED

[fitbrit]

EDIT: This was not a motherboard problem, but rather a Flash Drive issue. Seems like it the syslinux got corrupted during a power outage.

 

I've had a bunch of problems with my unraid server in the past month. Some will need their own threads. My old motherboard refused to boot up unraid any more, with an IDE error. Subsequent reading determined that this was a common motherboard problem.

I decided to buy the motherboard that Tom currently uses in his servers, the Supermicro C2SEA. Unfortunately the first one was DOA, so I got a replacement. I haven't had time to rebuild the whole server, but to test to ensure it wasn't DOA, I attached the PSU, CPU+fan and RAM. Booted fine. I next inserted my unRAID flash drive and it basically told me there wasn't an OD on the drive. This was with no array disks connected. The flash drive shows up as normal on my PC. In case the install got corrupted I redownloaded 4.5.6 and have copied the bzroot and bzimage files over to the flash drive. I'm about to put the server together again.

 

Questions:

Does the Supermicro C2SEA require something special to boot from the pen drive, other than directing the BIOS to do so?

Does Unraid fail to boot from the pen drive if there is no array connected?

Could my pen drive be busted somehow, even though it seems to work fine in the PC?

 

Thanks for any help offered. I have other issues to be resolved later, such as no longer having any idea which drives were assigned as what, and which is the true parity drive. Coming soon in other threads elsewhere.

[Thornwood]

I've had a bunch of problems with my unraid server in the past month. Some will need their own threads. My old motherboard refused to boot up unraid any more, with an IDE error. Subsequent reading determined that this was a common motherboard problem.

I decided to buy the motherboard that Tom currently uses in his servers, the Supermicro C2SEA. Unfortunately the first one was DOA, so I got a replacement. I haven't had time to rebuild the whole server, but to test to ensure it wasn't DOA, I attached the PSU, CPU+fan and RAM. Booted fine. I next inserted my unRAID flash drive and it basically told me there wasn't an OD on the drive. This was with no array disks connected. The flash drive shows up as normal on my PC. In case the install got corrupted I redownloaded 4.5.6 and have copied the bzroot and bzimage files over to the flash drive. I'm about to put the server together again.

 

Questions:

Does the Supermicro C2SEA require something special to boot from the pen drive, other than directing the BIOS to do so?

Does Unraid fail to boot from the pen drive if there is no array connected?

Could my pen drive be busted somehow, even though it seems to work fine in the PC?

 

Thanks for any help offered. I have other issues to be resolved later, such as no longer having any idea which drives were assigned as what, and which is the true parity drive. Coming soon in other threads elsewhere.

 

Questions:

Does the Supermicro C2SEA require something special to boot from the pen drive, other than directing the BIOS to do so?

 

I think like any mother board I have seen you need a boot Sector with files to be read from there. This is what syslinux utility creates. Try installing this again.

 

 

Does Unraid fail to boot from the pen drive if there is no array connected?

 

No it should boot correctly.

 

Could my pen drive be busted somehow, even though it seems to work fine in the PC? Could be.

 

Try running a chkdisk with sector check.

 

[fitbrit]

Thanks a lot. Before I proceed, is there a danger I could lose any array info if I had to reinstall the syslinux utility?

[Joe L.]

Thanks a lot. Before I proceed, is there a danger I could lose any array info if I had to reinstall the syslinux utility?

no, you will not.

 

If you re-format the flash drive you will lose the current configuration, so save a copy of the "config" folder elsewhere.

(And don't format the drive, it is not necessary to do it again if already formatted)

 

Joe L

[fitbrit]

Thanks a lot. Before I proceed, is there a danger I could lose any array info if I had to reinstall the syslinux utility?

no, you will not.

 

If you re-format the flash drive you will lose the current configuration, so save a copy of the "config" folder elsewhere.

(And don't format the drive, it is not necessary to do it again if already formatted)

 

Joe L

 

Thanks, Joe

 

I just returned to the thread to edit my last post since I figured it out for myself; I saw the config folder on the flash drive, examined its contents and came to the same conclusions. I won't format the drive - thanks for deterring me from a noob reflex!

[fitbrit]

chkdsk found some errors and fixed them. Will now try again...

 

...and again, nothing. I even replaced the syslinux.cfg, bzroot and bzimage files after the chkdsk fix, and still nothing. I tried booting my PC with the drive and it also failed to recognise an OS on the drive. Any further suggestions?

 

[EDIT] Okay, I feel stupid now. It's all fixed.

Thanks to Joe L (as always) for telling me not to format, and putting my mind at ease that I won't lose any configuration data.

Thanks to Thornwood:

 

-I learned how to use chkdsk, fix errors and check/fix sectors.

-I learned the difference between simply copying the syslinux.cfg file to my Flash drive and rerunning the syslinux.exe utility from the command line.

 

That was the problem. Something in the back of my mind was reminding me that when I first installed unraid, I needed to prep the drive somehow. So I went delving into the wikis and manual. There it was: download the utility. Run the exe file on the flash drive.

 

I did this and rebooted my Windows PC starting up from the Flash drive. Voila! the unRAID/memtest choice menu was up in seconds. Same thing with the new Supermicro mobo. I'll be reconstructing my server later tonight, with proper cable management this time. I can't wait to have my music and movies back online!

[fitbrit]

Fixed. Details in edited posts above.