Install hangs after the install drive is selected and OK is entered.

SJUBY

Cadet
Joined
Sep 15, 2020
Messages
5
I've been running 11.2-U6 for over a year. All was fine until the system battery on the motherboard depleted and a neighborhood power failure occurred. Bios settings were lost and had to be reset. Afterwards, FreeNas boot cycle would hang at the point where it tried to mount the root from zfs: I assumed the problem was related to the dead system battery and lost Bios settings.

After the Bios reset and continued failed boot attempts, I decided to do an upgrade to 11.3-U4.1. However, the new version fails to load. It hangs after I identify the install disk and press OK. Any keystrokes after pressing the OK would produce garbled text outside the blue install box. I'm not sure if this is indicative of disk damage on the SanDisk SSD or WD data disk

PC: Dell Optiplex 960 (8 gb memory)
NAS boot disk: SanDisk SDSSDA 120G (allocated as Sata 0)
Storage Disk: WD WD30EFRX 3.0 TB "RED" (allocated as Sata1)

System diagnostics: Reported error logs for Sata1

In addition to acquiring help on tis problem, I'm seeking info on the following questions

1. Can a Windows 10 PC, with the proper hardware/software, read a data disk formatted by FreeNAS (I would like to verify integrity of the data on (SATA 1)

2. In addition to the above question, I would like to transfer any/all of its files to a temporary NTFS drive if maintenance or replacement of this drive is necessary

2. During the boot-up procedure, when FreeNAS is attempting to mount the root from zfs, is it referring to mounting the SATA 0 (system boot) or SATA1 (data)

3. When updating from one FreeNAS version to another, does the install overwrite the existing files on the install disk or does it perform a "format" or a "delete all" function before writing the new install?
 

pschatz100

Guru
Joined
Mar 30, 2014
Messages
1,184
You replaced the backup battery on the motherboard. Right? Assuming that you don't have a hardware issue, I think it may be likely that you have an error in your bios settings. Just to be clear, you reset the BIOS on the motherboard and then attempted to boot the existing 11.2-U6 FreeNAS system? I am not familiar with the specifics of a Dell Optiplex 960, but are you certain the bios is set correctly to boot from the SSD? This is a very old system and it is probably fussy about boot devices. While not impossible, I consider it unlikely that your storage devices were damaged by a power loss so I am a little surprised you were not able to reboot the system after resetting the motherboard BIOS and restoring power - unless something was not correctly set in the BIOS.

Just to be safe, I would disconnect your data disk until you have re-established a working FreeNAS system

Did you write over the old boot device with a fresh install, or did you run an upgrade? A fresh install will wipe the drive while an upgrade will update the existing boot image.

To answer your other questions:
1) No. However, it is unlikely that your data has been damaged if everything was running OK before the power loss.
2) No.
2) Cannot tell from the information given
3) If you are referring to the creation of a new boot device, then it wipes and reformats the drive. There is a warning that you have to click through.
 

SJUBY

Cadet
Joined
Sep 15, 2020
Messages
5
Yes battery was installed and Bios reset.

It appears the SSD has failed. I replaced the SSD and successfully installed 11.3-u4.1. This resulted in a new install where no previous settings were transferred. I have accessed the NAS via the Web interface and rebuilt the user accounts. Then I imported the pool. I did not upgrade the dataset though. It appears the data disk retained its integrity since I could view the folder structures within the web interface and detected no errors/faults.

The NAS looks like it is functional and configured correctly from the Web interface but I cannot access any file storage through file explores on any Win10 PC. The PC's diagnostic error indicates it is "access denied".

Since the pool was imported, I don't know if I missed any steps (it appears the datasets came across with the imported pool). I'm not sure how to proceed and I didn't find any documentation relating to this particular process. I'm struggling to determine if this is issue is related to the account, SAMBA, pool or dataset. All Win10 PC's recently received an update from Microsoft to that's another possibility, albeit unlikely since others have not complained!
 

pschatz100

Guru
Joined
Mar 30, 2014
Messages
1,184
I don't think you have done anything wrong. I have the same problem accessing data from Windows 10. Sometimes, I find that I have to try several times to get windows to connect. Eventually, it does. After that, everything works OK.

I think it may have something to do with versions of samba that are supported by Windows 10 - or perhaps there is a configuration setting that can be adjusted. I have never bothered to find out as I always get it to work. Maybe somebody more knowledgeable in this area will comment.

After the very latest windows update, I have not seen the problem. Also, if you map a drive letter to the samba share, then you won't have the problem.
 
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