HP Proliant MS Gen8 G1610T won't boot USB With FreeNAS

[Migilenik]

Hi,

i have this weird problem with FreeNAS (currently 9.10.2) on our new HP MS Gen8. We purchased Kingston DataTraveler 100 G3 16GB as system drive, but i just cant get it boot up. Sata controller is on AHCI mode, XHCI controller is disabled as recommended here , usb is set to boot first. When i boot up, my other USB drive is detected and installation is started, in menu i can see this 16GB Kingston ad i can successfully install system. But after reboot, it just spins trying to boot from everything else like it just doesnt see the USB. After installation to HDD, it just boots fine.

I have read again all those blogs about FreeNAS on this MicroServer, nobody mentioned anything about problems with USB boot. Is there somebody with hands on this device?

 

[vibratingKWAX]

I have the same system to test the current beta.
I have noticed that the USB 3.0 ports on the back are not bootable! If you connect your boot usb drive to the USB 3.0 ports, it won't work!
My boot drive is currently connected to the internal USB 2.0 port and works fine.

 

[Migilenik]

Hi, thanks for advice but it didnt work either. Good news is that it helped me to find ... kind of ... solution.

When firmware started spinning trying to boot, i just removed USB stick and inserted it right back, didnt matter which port. And it did the trick, FreeNAS loaded and it worked perfectly.

It doesnt survive power outage or poweroff, but reboot works without need to reinsert USB stick, so i think we can live with that.

 

[stitch]

There should be a MicroSD card slot inside the chassis on the side of the internal USB. The MS Gen8 will not boot from USB unless the USB device is using ISO-Linux (there are a few forums discussing this, VMware is when it primarily comes up). It will boot reliably off the MicroSD though (I've been using one for over a week experimenting with VMware and FreeNAS).

 

[Migilenik]

That explains why installation media is detected without problems. Unfortunately i dont have any microSD, and even if i had .... i have read a lot of posts complaining about using microSD as target drive for FreeNAS.

 

[Migilenik]

So it wasn't a solution at all. After creating a pool MicroServer is trying to boot data disks.

 

[stitch]

I hadn't come across those warnings-but I have read that quality (read expensive) MicroSD cards do feature wear leveling. At the end of the day though, you'll need to hack something together to get a Microserver to boot off USB (based on what I've seen, though I may try it anyways).

I'm not sure I follow your last post?

 

[Migilenik]

I was able to boot USB by reinserting it while firmware was trying to boot from anything in a cycle. But after creating a zfs pool and reboot, it stopped spinning trying to boot, it just tried to boot from HDD and halted with "its a NAS data disk" message.

So .... microSD card for the rescue.
I bought one, its working, solved.
Thanks for the kick. :)

 

[stitch]

I was just able to boot mine off of USB with FreeNAS 10 installed on USB from a cold boot using the internal USB header. I tossed in a Sony 16GB USB 3.0 "Click" drive and that is working.

Admittedly, I'm also running the latest firmware and iLO Advanced-since the internal USB is iLO associated, the limitation on booting ISO Linux could be artificial based on licensing OR it could have been fixed in a newer BIOS release.

Did you try using the internal USB port when you were experimenting?

 

[Migilenik]

Yes, i used the internal USB but with no success. I have only basic iLO 4 but i think i dont have latest firmware. Will try update it and try one more time.

 

[Migilenik]

SO i have got ILO 4 standard with firmware 2.40. There is no mention of USB except in License menu >

Licensing iLO Advanced enables ........ Virtual Media: ..... USB-key .....

Not sure why it should be connected to physical interfaces, but right now i just need to get it work. So i will stick with microSD and later dig deeper in iLO advanced features.

Many thanks for all the help. :)

 

[GreyMatters]

I have a similar setup with an almost smooth experience. I'm booting from internal usb with a mirror to an external stick (rear, don't know if it's a USB 3 or USB2 port). I never had problems after a correct boot order in the bios.

Is it possible to mirror the internal sd card to a usb stick? Could be an interesting possibility.

I'm using the stock firmware, stock ilo, stock all :D because i don't know how to update it.
When i got this little great machine i tried to update using intelligent provisioning but the remote website failed by timeout again and again.
I'm using it headless, so it was a very unsatisfactory experience.
Is there a better way to update the various firmwares of gen 8?
Thank you!

 

[stitch]

I have a similar setup with an almost smooth experience. I'm booting from internal usb with a mirror to an external stick (rear, don't know if it's a USB 3 or USB2 port). I never had problems after a correct boot order in the bios.

Is it possible to mirror the internal sd card to a usb stick? Could be an interesting possibility.

I'm using the stock firmware, stock ilo, stock all :D because i don't know how to update it.
When i got this little great machine i tried to update using intelligent provisioning but the remote website failed by timeout again and again.
I'm using it headless, so it was a very unsatisfactory experience.
Is there a better way to update the various firmwares of gen 8?
Thank you!

Firmware updates now require a valid warranty or support agreement to get the SPP ISO image from HP which has all the firmware updates on it... Which sucks if you buy or receive it used.

 

[Donny Davis]

I have a gen 8 hp server in the lab now that runs freenas from the SD slot. I disabled the factory controller and use a pcie hba. I have zero issues with booting from SD reliably

 

[Fourteen20]

http://homeservershow.com/forums/index.php?/forum/88-ms-gen-8/
a handy place if you are a gen 8 owner, i am very happy with mine, it boots from the internal usb (sandisk cruzer fit 16Gb) .
Also go into iLO control panel [Power Management]->[Power Settings]->[OS Control mode] then powerd will work.

 

[ant0nwax]

For updating this thread, I share my experience:
FreeNAS installer is booting from most USB pendrives inside my Gen 7 HP Microserver, but when it comes to reboot, it gets stuck after the POST before booting from the installed FreeNAS image on the USB pendrive, I tried all variations.
It is true that when you are on site at your server, than you could unplug the USB, startup the Microserver, wait until the Graphical POST, insert the USB pendrive, and most likely this will work, just what to do when you are off site?
I found ONE working configuration: By chance I used a USB to SD Card adapter and wow it is able to stay plugged in and will boot the FreeNAS image
I am not sure if it depends on the adapter or the SD Card, just this solution works in my case.
Now since I would like to have a RAID 1 USB boot drive, I will need another USB to SD Card adapter and then mirror the USB OS to the second SD Card
I am curious already today if that will work, I will share my experience later when I bought those additional devices and installed them.
Best regards, and I hope I could help with this, I needed many hours and hours of rebooting for getting this experience :) use it carefully (and no animals got harmed during testing :)

 

[pschatz100]

OP: I am not familiar with your hardware, but back in August I found a strange boot problem with my X9-SCM Supermicro board:

For some reason, the motherboard is being fussy about whether the boot type is UEFI or BIOS for certain devices. I don't know if it is a hardware issue, a timing issue or something about the way the boot environment is being written, but on my motherboard I can boot from UEFI when the device is a flash drive, but I have to use BIOS boot (Supermicro calls it LEGACY) when booting from an SSD.

This means I have to choose the right option when creating the boot device. With the SSD I am currently using as a boot device, the system would not boot when it was set up for UEFI, but all was good when it was set up for BIOS boot.

With Supermicro motherboards, there are a number of ways boot devices can be configured in the BIOS. This problem may not be similar to yours, but if you are creating the boot devices for UEFI boot, you might try setting them up for BIOS boot. If your system BIOS allows you to set the boot device type, make certain you have it set correctly.

Good luck.

 

[ezekiel.incorrigible]

I have this issue with my gen8! Did anybody make any further progress? Seems like the consensus is to use an uSD card? I just put FreeNAS 11.1 on one and it seems to be booting reliably enough, although I notice a bunch of errors. eg. 'GEOM: ada1: the primary GPT table is corrupt or invalid... using the secondary instead -- recovery strongly advised'.

Do you get this? Not sure if this is related to the micro8 or the sd card or something else - Should I be concerned?