USB creator not seeing USB drive.

[lobstar]

I have a SanDisk Ultra Fit 256GB USB drive.  It's formatted for exFAT@4k with the volume set as 'UNRAID'.  Win10, latest updates/patches.  I've tried a couple different USB controllers on my machine but it doesn't change the situation.  No listed USB devices in the USB creator.

 

Edit: TrueNAS does not require a USB stick and works great.

Edited November 1, 2021 by lobstar

[trurl]

Use another, preferably USB2, 32GB or less. Format as FAT32. Also, preferably boot from USB2 port. 

[lobstar]

I don't believe my motherboard has any USB 2.0 ports.  Further, my destination server doesn't have any either.  Are you saying I need a special legacy USB card and drive just for this server?

 

Edit:  BTW, thank you for your help   I don't mean to sound ungrateful with the question, just surprised.

Edited March 22, 2020 by lobstar

[trurl]

Some hardware seems to have problems keeping USB3 ports connected. Doesn't matter so much what you create the flash drive on, but you may have less problems if your server boots from a USB2 port. Sometimes the motherboard will have headers for USB2 even if there are only USB3 ports exposed externally.

 

Unraid doesn't run from the flash drive. It is more like firmware. It unpacks the OS archives from flash into RAM, and runs in RAM. The flash drive is also used to store configurations you make in the webUI so they can be reapplied at boot. So, speed and capacity aren't important for the flash drive.

 

[lobstar]

On 3/22/2020 at 5:26 PM, trurl said:

Doesn't matter so much what you create the flash drive on,

Just to be clear, this IS the problem

[trurl]

52 minutes ago, lobstar said:

Just to be clear, this IS the problem

No, this is the problem

On 3/22/2020 at 7:12 PM, lobstar said:

256GB USB drive.  It's formatted for exFAT@4k

On 3/22/2020 at 7:35 PM, trurl said:

Use another, preferably USB2, 32GB or less. Format as FAT32. Also, preferably boot from USB2 port. 

 

 

[trurl]

See this section on the Product Page:

 

https://unraid.net/product#usb-flash-drive

[lobstar]

1 hour ago, trurl said:

No, this is the problem

I think you miss the point I'm making here:  How did we get in such a narrow hardware range?  Why has the compatibility not been increased to what you can actually buy off the shelf at an actual retailer?

[aneelley]

On 4/1/2020 at 8:58 PM, lobstar said:

I think you miss the point I'm making here:  How did we get in such a narrow hardware range?  Why has the compatibility not been increased to what you can actually buy off the shelf at an actual retailer?

I agree.  I have been an Unraid Pro key user for a number of years and I am running the system off a legacy Sandisk Cruzer Ultra fit.  Works great.  I purchased a Sandisk 32GB USB 3.1 Gen 1 Ultra Fit flash drive to build a new server with a Unraid Pro key.  The USB creator will not see the new flash drive.  I tried the manual method and the server will not boot from the drive.  It does see the drive in the bios and I have it as the first boot unit.  Not sure why this would not work unless it is because it is USB 3.1 and not USB 2.0.  Sounds like we need an update to support newer versions of USB flash drives. The old ones are getting harder to find.  Just my .02.

[fegato]

On 5/15/2020 at 6:56 AM, aneelley said:

I agree.  I have been an Unraid Pro key user for a number of years and I am running the system off a legacy Sandisk Cruzer Ultra fit.  Works great.  I purchased a Sandisk 32GB USB 3.1 Gen 1 Ultra Fit flash drive to build a new server with a Unraid Pro key.  The USB creator will not see the new flash drive.  I tried the manual method and the server will not boot from the drive.  It does see the drive in the bios and I have it as the first boot unit.  Not sure why this would not work unless it is because it is USB 3.1 and not USB 2.0.  Sounds like we need an update to support newer versions of USB flash drives. The old ones are getting harder to find.  Just my .02.

I would like to be a new Unraid Pro user, but I just dicovered none of my quite common usb 3 drive (a sandisk 32gb, a kingston 64, a lexar 128) would work.... this lack of support for usb3 just held me from going on... but then this strange thing happened: I connected two usb at the same time(kingston and sandisk) and suddenly the flash creator detected the kingston, so I started the creation on that but instead the creator wrote the files on the undetected sandisk... is that supposed to happen?

[trurl]

27 minutes ago, fegato said:

a sandisk 32gb, a kingston 64, a lexar 128) ... the creator wrote the files on the undetected sandisk...

  

32GB is the maximum size for FAT32. I've never use the USB Creator having set up many years before it was available.

 

I recommend booting Unraid with that sandisk, but from a USB2 port. USB2 is more reliable, and USB3 speeds aren't needed since the OS is unpacked into RAM from the archives on flash at boot and Unraid OS runs completely in RAM. The flash drive is actually little used, mostly just for storing configuration changes you make in the webUI.

[aneelley]

I was able to get the new cd key to boot.  I had to set the boot to Legacy devices.

[Kosti]

As my current USB and the unraid OS is well over 30days, does this cause any problems if the trial license has expired or that I never aquired a trial licence?

 

Meaning is this somehow crippling my system up?

 

The plan was to test some features but life got in the way and with COVID I managed to test this on a ESXI prior to moving this as a stand alone, now I want to move this to another USB which there lies the next problem in that I just purchased 2 sandisc ultrafit usb 3.1 flash drive but the UBS creator doesn't recognize it ?

 

I've used another similar USB3.0 stick (current) one just fine, and yes I've read that USB2 is preferred etc but what is the creator looking for?

 

Given I purchased these 2 usb sticks to be identical for the purpose to be used for unRaid and both are not being detected by the creator, this is something I would've expected back in 2014 when I first looked unraid not in 2020 when I come back to check in?

 

Is the manual install the only way to install unraid on these USB units and would I be able to transfer from current details from the old one to the new USBs given the tool doesn't work?

[xanderflix]

The installer seems to be a bit picky on Windows.

I had the same problem with a SanDisk Ultra Fit 32 GB USB 3.1.

 

Formatted as FAT32, renamed it to "UNRAID" and then UnRAID installer just refused to see it.

 

However.

Moved over to my Macbook, refortmatted using the Disk Utility, started the UnRAID installer and it popped up straight away. Installed no problem.

 

This is not the first time I've run into problems with FAT32 partitioned disks and Windows 10 either so it could be an issue on M$'s side.

 

Go figure. 🤷‍♂️

Edited October 31, 2020 by xanderflix

[mgutt]

On 10/31/2020 at 2:41 PM, xanderflix said:

This is not the first time I've run into problems with FAT32 partitioned disks and Windows 10 either so it could be an issue on M$'s side.

Interesting. Having the SanDisk Ultra Fit here, too. And its the same problem. The Creator does not find it:

 

I've tested executing the Creator as Admin and re-formatting the flash drive as well. I even used an USB3 to USB2 adapter cable to force the flash drive to work as USB2 device. Had no problems with other USB2 or USB3.x flash drives.

 

It's time for a bug report ^^

[lessismore]

I have a Sandisk Ultra Fit too. I couldn't get the flash creator to recognise the USB. I also couldn't do it manually either (I can't recall the exact error, something about permission denied). Turning off Windows Controlled Folder Access helped me progress a bit more, but I couldn't get it working. Instead I did it manually on my Linux nuc.

[Teknishun]

I couldn't get 16GB Sandisk Ultra to work in Windows 10. I even tried mounting passing it thru to a Win 10 VM on the server as that has USB 2 ports. It was formatted in Fat32.

 

It worked fine in my old MacBook though. 

[Econaut]

Same issue - this is a pretty frustrating limitation:

 

 

This drive is plugged into a 2.0 port but the drive is a SanDisk 3.2Gen1.

[ChatNoir]

I agree that it is an issue.

 

In the meantime, did you try the manual install ?

• Download the last stable from : https://unraid.net/download  (or the 6.9RC2 from https://s3.amazonaws.com/dnld.lime-technology.com/next/unRAIDServer-6.9.0-rc2-x86_64.zip)
• Format your key in FAT32 and name it UNRAID (looks like you are good up to this)
• put the content of the archive on the drive
• run the appropriate make_bootable file for your system

[Econaut]

Yeah I did try that as well and ran the .bat as admin. It looks like it worked but the host system won't boot the drive. Tried booting UEFI and legacy - neither worked.

 

Ordered some 2.0 flash drives to try anyway but now I need to return the 3.0 ones I got.

Edited March 11, 2021 by Econaut

[ChatNoir]

When trying to boot in UEFI, did you rename the UFI- folder to UFI ?

[Econaut]

Ah, no I did not. In the inverse scenario (non-UEFI boot), must that folder contain the dash?

[trurl]

1 minute ago, Econaut said:

In the inverse scenario (non-UEFI boot), must that folder contain the dash?

yes

[Econaut]

Thanks that ended up working but it was a "EFI-" > "EFI". Interestingly, it failed when I interrupted autostart and tried manually picking items saying for each:

Failed to allocate initramfs memory, failing out
Booting kernel failed: Bad file number

[truefranco]

To make the USB manualy UEFI in windows open a CMD shell as administrator go to your stick drive with " D: " once in there write  " make_bootable.bat /i ".