Motherboard replaced and not booting

[Marcelofs1]

Hello all
I hve been looking on some other posts with stuck on booting but could not find a way to identify the reason.
I have a ASROCK C2750D4I that failed after a few years. I sned it out to manufacturer who return a brand new one.
I really thought that would be a matter to just reinstall everything back but I guess there is a new BIOS or something that is preventing the system to Boot.
The system stuck at the message "Trying to mount root from zfs:freenas-boot/ROOT/11.2-U7 []... "
I have attached all the 8 HD at the same connectors they were following the same sequence and the boot that resides on a 16Gb flash dirve seems intact but I have no clue on how to proceed. Any guidelines?

 

[Marcelofs1]

Well, a bit of an update.
I managed to enble the boot from my Flasdrive as originally done. The jumper setup somehow changed and I had to get a different configuration to enable the usb header as a bootable device. This leads me to think if there is a change on the hardware configuration. I now have this error:

Well, as per my searches this indicates that the disk array is somehow wrong. Well, I got all my 8 disks labeled and also the cables connecting to the motherboard. Does anyone can put some light on how to address this?

 

[Marcelofs1]

Another update. I tried to boot without the 8 disks and got same result. Somehow the new motherboard has some differences (exactly same model ASROCK C2750D4I but with a ore recent BIOS). I do have a large DB that I do not want to loose into so reinstall a new fresh is not an option. Is there a way I can work on this image to fix it?

 

[sretalla]

I do have a large DB that I do not want to loose

Is the large DB in your data pool? I don't see how reinstalling the OS (and restoring the config) would lose a DB.

Seems to me like just making a new FreeNAS boot/install USB and trying to boot from that is a harmless exercise that will help to understand the problem.

 

[Marcelofs1]

Is the large DB in your data pool? I don't see how reinstalling the OS (and restoring the config) would lose a DB.

Seems to me like just making a new FreeNAS boot/install USB and trying to boot from that is a harmless exercise that will help to understand the problem.

Ops! Bad choose of words. No, the DB I mention is related to my PLEX running on the FreeNas jail. The data in the pool still intact (I hope :) )
I will try to create a new Freenas to test. I was afraid that having a new boot device could somehow damage the existing pool.

 

[sretalla]

The data in the pool still intact

This it highly likely to be the case. Failures to boot will not usually indicate any issue with pool disks/data.

 

[Marcelofs1]

I will need some few flash disks :) and most of the time I only have time to work on my system on weekends. I will try to get some time during the nights but my work schedule will be a problem.
Just to clarify my expectations: I really hope I can somehow "fix" my current Freenas boot device as I have many jails inside (Plex, Subsonic, Ubooquity and others) running. All of them have all the media mapped already. Rebuilding such maping will really be a huge effors as I am working on those media since 2015.
Another thing I cannot really understand is the fact when I replaced the motherboard was the original configuration was the same and the system didn't boot. Reading a lot and moving around with countless items on foruns, I managed to make the MB "see" the boot device and, when it seems everything was going OK (The freeNas boot started) after loading many modules it freezes on "Trying to mount root from zfs:freenas-boot/ROOT/11.2-U7 []... " I also have created an entry on the forum as I have found dozens of issues with the C2750D4I but none exactly like what I was facing. Everything was leading me to think that my ZFS2 with 8 disks I took care to label all cables and connector in the MB to get exactly same disk order could be somehow changed due the new BIOS (this was just a hunch as I have no idea/data from previous to new board to support that idea).
I will boot from a new device(s) and see what happens. Thanks a lot in advance for you time and patience.

Marcelo

 

[joeld79]

you might need to flash the LSI controller or something along those lines to recognize the drives

 

[amp88]

Everything was leading me to think that my ZFS2 with 8 disks I took care to label all cables and connector in the MB to get exactly same disk order could be somehow changed due the new BIOS (this was just a hunch as I have no idea/data from previous to new board to support that idea).

My understanding is that the order drives are connected to a system shouldn't be a concern with FreeNAS, because the organisation of pool members is done via drive GPTID and the contents of the drives themselves, which remains the same no matter which port the drive is connected to on a motherboard/controller and no matter how many drives are in the system. Tom Lawrence did a demonstration of this on YouTube a while back.

 

[sretalla]

My understanding is that the order drives are connected to a system shouldn't be a concern with FreeNAS

Correct, drive connection order is in no way important.

 

[Marcelofs1]

Wow! It took me a while but I finally managed to boot.
In a very short line, only when I replaced my boot device for an SSD I could manage to boot the system. It seems the new ASROCK 2750D4I does not like the USB flash drives as a boot device. :(.
Well, now I got the challenge to transfer the old configuration file from the USB (I never ever considered that this oculd be required - yeah, shame on me) OR rebuild everythig from the scratch. I do not mind but I a really concerned with my existing data. I need to go over the whole manual again as I am really afraid to lose my data (mainly pictures and VHS movies converted from my kids back from 1990's)

 

[sretalla]

If your system dataset was set to your data pool there's a good chance you will find them in this path /var/db/system/configs-c0708eef149b49a396f66530a6f1b80a

Your data will not be lost, ZFS and FreeNAS are a great combination in that sense as the OS is entirely separated from the data and a new install of the OS can get to the data almost regardless of the hardware the disks are attached to.

 

[Marcelofs1]

If your system dataset was set to your data pool there's a good chance you will find them in this path /var/db/system/configs-c0708eef149b49a396f66530a6f1b80a

Your data will not be lost, ZFS and FreeNAS are a great combination in that sense as the OS is entirely separated from the data and a new install of the OS can get to the data almost regardless of the hardware the disks are attached to.

Thanks a lot for the information. I will try tonight when get back from work. I really appreciate the help

 

[Marcelofs1]

If your system dataset was set to your data pool there's a good chance you will find them in this path /var/db/system/configs-c0708eef149b49a396f66530a6f1b80a

Your data will not be lost, ZFS and FreeNAS are a great combination in that sense as the OS is entirely separated from the data and a new install of the OS can get to the data almost regardless of the hardware the disks are attached to.

Well, with a little bit of time now to read and seek for the next steps... :)
When I first had a crash on my Patriot NAS (RAID 5) I got a long road to recover the data and end up finding out about FreeNAS (and others) and after several "consultations" in forums I decided to build my own. Today I am really happy to have made that decision as I managed to get it back and see this

zpool status
pool: Moria
state: ONLINE
status: Some supported features are not enabled on the pool. The pool can still be used, but some features are unavailable.
action: Enable all features using 'zpool upgrade'. Once this is done, the pool may no longer be accessible by software that does not support the features. See zpool-features(7) for details.
scan: scrub repaired 0 in 0 days 16:58:33 with 0 errors on Sat Nov 30 16:58:41 2019 (this is onde day prior the motherboard failure)
config:
NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
Moria ONLINE 0 0 0
raidz2-0 ONLINE 0 0 0
gptid/7d493c6d-fa4b-11e7-9842-d05099785ff9 ONLINE 0 0 0
gptid/93e3d8fd-55b8-11e9-8c9e-d05099785ff9 ONLINE 0 0 0
gptid/b525ddd8-53d5-11e9-8c9e-d05099785ff9 ONLINE 0 0 0
gptid/cdcb9c79-031f-11e9-85e8-d05099785ff9 ONLINE 0 0 0
gptid/4a066759-b619-11e8-aeba-d05099785ff9 ONLINE 0 0 0
gptid/a370c630-2e65-11e9-8b0a-d05099785ff9 ONLINE 0 0 0
gptid/736c4ecc-527a-11e9-b4e4-d05099785ff9 ONLINE 0 0 0
gptid/880d2c73-0cb2-11e9-82fc-d05099785ff9 ONLINE 0 0 0

errors: No known data errors

pool: freenas-boot
state: ONLINE
scan: none requested
config:

NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
freenas-boot ONLINE 0 0 0
ada2p2 ONLINE 0 0 0

errors: No known data errors


Now, I will start seeking a way to bring this back to life (must say that message scared me a little so I want to learn more prior executing any command like the suggested upgrade).
When I go to the Storage -> Pools and try to add/import the pool it does not appear from the dropdown menu. Time to go to the manual :)

Edit 1 - From the GUI the pool was not being recognized. Looking on the forums I found the information that using import/export in fact does not cause any harm to the data so I did an EXPORT on the pool (% sudo zpool export Moria), rebooted and, from the GUI I could import the pool. YAY!
Looking into the /var/db/system/ patch I have the following:

% ls
configs-26bec1b654b54f3489f57aa43ee342f9 rrd-5aa37175611b480aa1ee1aee411ae28f
configs-5aa37175611b480aa1ee1aee411ae28f samba4
consul syslog-26bec1b654b54f3489f57aa43ee342f9
cores syslog-5aa37175611b480aa1ee1aee411ae28f
nfs-stablerestart update
nfs-stablerestart.bak webui
rrd-26bec1b654b54f3489f57aa43ee342f9

Folder configs-26bec... is empty
Folder configs-5aa37....
FreeNAS-11.3-RELEASE

So, my original pool was on FreeNAS-11.2-RELEASE and I am wondering if I need to do a downgrade?

 

[sretalla]

The FreeNAS version will be able to read older version pools, just not necessarily the other way around.

It's possible that your system dataset wasn't on your data pool, so you will just need to rebuild your config (create users, shares and jails again).

 

[Marcelofs1]

End of the drama :)
Thank you all for the support. I found this guide that also helped to locate where the old configuration was and I managed to move the 15GB from there to the new iocage jail.
Once again, a special thanks to @sretalla for the patience and guideline. At the end all my system dataset was in the pool and I am now in a path to learn more on how to plan a proper control on the config.