UnRAID won't boot on HP Microserver Gen8


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Hey there,

 

I recently wanted to switch from ESXi to UnRaid. After I installed the system on a USB drive I tried to connect the usb drive to the internal USB 2.0 port in the Microserver. But after setting all bios options the usb drive didn't start. It just told me "Attemping to Boot from USB DriveKey (C:)" but at this point it stopped doing anything. So after this I tried 3 other usb drives and all off the available usb ports on the server without a success.

After hours and hours of trying to get this working I tried to use a microSD card and installed UnRAID on the card. After putting it in the internal microSD card slot it worked. For the next 5 minutes I was super happy, but then, it told me, that a microSD card doesn't has a unique GUID and I can't license it because of this, so I'm back to my old problem: How to get it working with a usb drive. I really really hope that someone of you guys can help me... I'm just so frustrated...

 

Best regards!

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1 hour ago, MauriceK said:

Yes, I already tried it. I already found a post somewhere in the internet which said, that I'm only able to boot Linux-ISOs from an USB drive...

Are you using UEFI boot?  If not try it.  Set up bios for UEFI boot and in Flash Creator Tool select UEFI boot (or you can simply rename 'UEFI-' folder to 'UEFI', ie, remove the trailing dash character).

 

If already using UEFI boot, pleae try "Legacy" boot.  Reverse of above.

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8 hours ago, limetech said:

I think others with G8 have had success.  Quick search shows:

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1428824-can-t-boot-from-usb-hp-proliant-dl320e-g8-server

 

You have to search for a person who got it running with a HP MicroServer Gen8 and not for other models...

I have the MicroServer and there is a little difference in the BIOS. I don't really have the possibilities like other servers.

If you need screenshots of the bios I can send you some if you need those!

Edited by MauriceK
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9 hours ago, MauriceK said:

Hey guys, so today I got it working. I took my usb drive (4GB) and created a volume with only 1 GB. After doing the installation again it worked perfectly!

That's interesting.  How did you create the volume?  Maybe the bios has problems booting FAT32 volume but FAT16 works, and your 'volume' is formatted now with FAT16?  Just speculation.

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17 hours ago, MauriceK said:

I just used the "Disk Management" in "Computer Management" to first delete all volumes and then created a FAT32 volume with 1024 MB as size. It works and I'm happy ;)

When you were playing around with the partition table, is there a chance that previously it had a GPT partitioning scheme and you changed it to MBR? I have a Microserver Gen 8 running Unraid and it has always worked fine booting from an 8 GB flash with one partition occupying all the available space and plugged into the internal USB 2.0 socket. It's a while since I set it up but it was very easy, starting with a brand new server. The only BIOS changes I had to make were to put the built-in RAID controller into AHCI JBOD mode and to enable disk write caching. Beyond that it just worked. What BIOS version are you running?

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  • 3 months later...
On 2/10/2019 at 5:09 AM, MauriceK said:

I just used the "Disk Management" in "Computer Management" to first delete all volumes and then created a FAT32 volume with 1024 MB as size. It works and I'm happy ;)

Thanks for the tip! This worked for me too (though I created a 2GB FAT32 volume on my Sandisk cruzer 32gb...)

I notice in Unraid (syslinux config page) that the Gen8 boots in Legacy mode. I couldn't find in the HP BIOS if this could be changed to UEFI...

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  • 2 years later...
  • 7 months later...

I have this same issue, but I only have a M1 Mac to create the bootable USB drive. There is no equivalent way for me to create a smaller FAT or FAT32 volume or partition than the entire disk using macOS Disk Utility.

 

I have tried some different image writing utilities, including Balena Etcher, unetbootin, `dd` from the terminal, manually copying the Unraid internal folder structure and running the `make_bootable_mac` (but this fails, likely due to the M1 CPU).

 

Any help / guidance?

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interesting idea, @itimpi

 

interestingly, the first burning of the Ubuntu installer ISO onto the original Samsung 32GB USB drive, put it in 1 of the external USB2.0 slots and it booted immediately!

 

Now within this "live" system, how do I create the Unraid installer USB drive?

 

There is no Linux disk creator app.

I have no write permissions on the local disk.

Supporting components aren't installed.

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Trying to recreate what @MauriceK did by creating a smaller partition on this disk using GParted on this Ubuntu Live. Then I returned this disk to my M1 Mac and redid the Unraid Creator.

 

After completing, I put it back into the Ubuntu Live and re-checked it with GParted. This has replaced what was on the disk with a single FAT32 partition, that has the "boot" and "lba" flags on the partition. However, it does not boot when put back into the Microserver.

 

 

The Ubuntu Live CD created a Grub bootloader when it was loading from the BIOS.

Are there manual steps to replicate creating this config on the USB flash drive? And then I might be able to copy the Unraid ISO onto a partition?

 

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there are some equivalent USB boot issues with this specific model. Some mention the make & model of the device, but I had just proved with a different bootable image, this system could use the devices I had to hand. So I am continuing.

 

On a separate TrueNAS forum thread, the OP points to this source to create a custom Grub USB boot loader:

 

https://github.com/ndeineko/grub2-bios-uefi-usb

 

This has worked in so much it just booted into Grub and my menu entry was listed.

 

However it errors with:

error: unknown filesystem.
error: you need to load the kernel first.

Press any key to continue...

 

My `/boot/grub/grub.cfg` file is:

 

menuentry 'unRAID 6.11.5'{
    set isofile="/isos/unRAIDServer-6.11.5-x86_64.iso"
    #search --set=root --file $isofile
    #rmmod tpm #uncomment if grub version is 2.04 in UEFI mode (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1851311)
    loopback isoloop $isofile
    linux (isoloop)/casper/vmlinuz locale=en_GB boot=casper iso-scan/filename=$isofile quiet --
    initrd (isoloop)/casper/initrd
}

 

Not sure if it is progress, or simply another or different error (and associated rabbit hole!).

 

Is there a change to this issued command(s) that would fix within this setup?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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