Setting up bios to begin using freenas

[Lightperfect]

Dear all,
i am really new to freenas. been searching on the forum for about 2days for all the question and answers, i have installed freenas on my usb drive with no problem. when i login and ready to format my hard drive. i ran into a same problem as this post: http://forums.freenas.org/threads/8-3-not-showing-hdd.10997/#post-50323

The hard drive I use is wd black 1t. With windows7 install on it.
Do I have to format my hard drive with windows disk first before I can see the hard drive in the browser? Seems like I can't find my hard showing up on the browser at all.. What did I do wrong?

Thanks for your all help

Sam

 

[Lightperfect]

I am using the latest freenas 9.1.x

 

[gpsguy]

No, don't format it with Windows, you'll want to erase your disk.

This is a quick way of doing it from the console. The example uses ada3, you'd need to replace it with your device (probably ada0)..

Here's the magic incantation for wiping the beginnning & end of your disk(s), replace ada3 with your disk/device:

Code:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ada3 bs=1m count=1
 
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ada3 bs=1m oseek=`diskinfo ada3 | awk '{print int($3 / (1024*1024)) - 4;}'`
 

 

[Lightperfect]

Ok I will give it a try when I get home.

What you meant by posting to console is the blinking black screen and says select option 1-11. Right?

Thanks so much for the quick reply.

Sam

 

[pirateghost]

You can enable ssh and use putty to connect to the console. Makes it easy to run commands.

However, you should still be able to see the drive in the GUI. It shouldn't require a wipe just to get it to show up...
Please verify that you're not using raid in your motherboard bios and you are not using chipset that is unsupported.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

 

[Lightperfect]

You can enable ssh and use putty to connect to the console. Makes it easy to run commands.

However, you should still be able to see the drive in the GUI. It shouldn't require a wipe just to get it to show up...
Please verify that you're not using raid in your motherboard bios and you are not using chipset that is unsupported.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Is not a raid hard drive. It's just a single western digital black 1t 7200rpm drive with windows7 boot installed in it.

Couldn't see it in GUI at all.. Don't know why.. I boot from the hard drive into my windows7 has no problem at all.

It could be my bio's setting. Just wondering how it could be set into?

 

[Dusan]

Where are you looking for the drive? Which screen do you expect it to appear in?

 

[pirateghost]

Is not a raid hard drive. It's just a single western digital black 1t 7200rpm drive with windows7 boot installed in it.

Couldn't see it in GUI at all.. Don't know why.. I boot from the hard drive into my windows7 has no problem at all.

It could be my bio's setting. Just wondering how it could be set into?

Check to see if it's in ahci mode in bios. Ahci is preferred.

Booting to Windows is not an indicator of anything. It has to do with freebsd compatibility.

Sent from my Nexus 7

 

[Krutet]

Is not a raid hard drive. It's just a single western digital black 1t 7200rpm drive with windows7 boot installed in it.

Couldn't see it in GUI at all.. Don't know why.. I boot from the hard drive into my windows7 has no problem at all.

It could be my bio's setting. Just wondering how it could be set into?

It sounds like your not in the webgui of freenas, it sounds more like you are at the installation screen (you mentioned blinking screen 1-11) am I right? Have you logged in with a Web browser from a different computer?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

 

[Lightperfect]

It sounds like your not in the webgui of freenas, it sounds more like you are at the installation screen (you mentioned blinking screen 1-11) am I right? Have you logged in with a Web browser from a different computer?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

Yes. I am in the web GUI from my iMac browser.
And log-in succefully. Just can't see my hard drive in the volume manger at all

 

[Lightperfect]

Where do I look to see if my hard drive is in ahci mode in bios?

 

[pirateghost]

Where do I look to see if my hard drive is in ahci mode in bios?

Well. In the bios.

Bios layouts are different between manufacturers so I couldn't tell you. Just look around in bios for SATA settings of some sort.

You also have not mentioned your hardware. What motherboard, sata controller, ram, etc

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

 

[gpsguy]

You'll have to look at the BIOS settings yourself. I'd suggest looking at the manual for your motherboard.

 

[Lightperfect]

well, just did set to ahci mode. still not showing in storage -> disks-> no entry been found or storage -> view volumes

 

[Lightperfect]

do i have to unplug the hard drive to do some kind of switch on the hard drive?

 

[Lightperfect]

AhcI mode is not showing my hard drive as posted

 

[gpsguy]

Please answer pirateghost's request for "You also have not mentioned your hardware. What motherboard, sata controller, ram, etc".

Based on your jpeg, you have a Asus P6X58D-E motherboard. If your hard disk is plugged into a gray SATA connector (Marvel controller), please move it to one of the blue ones (Intel).

 

[pirateghost]

Considering you have given zero system specs all we can do is speculate. Have you tried turning it off and on again?
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn2FB1P_Mn8

 

[Lightperfect]

thanks all for the reply and giving the helping hand! finally I made it work!

for the future reference I am going to post about all the noob steps to install freenas:

1. you need a usb key (least2-4gb size);
2. you will have to burn the freenas img to a cd or dvd;
3. you will need to set motherboard BIOs before install (boot order, sata type:ahci mode & look into advance tab for hard drive mode to ahci as well)

that's what I did to made my drive show up on the GUI.

thanks all again! can't wait to use it!

sam