System halted boot error

[antz]

hi,

I have installed freenas on my old PC sometime ago. My PC config is as follows

HP Pro 3010
Intel core2 Quad Q8300 2.5Ghz
4GB Ram

I basically install and forget since it was working fine from first install until now. It was more than a year since I login to freenas.

After I set it up and able to map shares on my network, i never touched it again. The cpu does not even have a monitor. after the drive starts working, it basically just run 24/7 as a shared drive on my network.

Now, we moved from one place to another.

When I boot up on the new location, Iget this error which from searching here in forums seems to be a common problem.

“This is a NAS data disk and cannot boot system. System halted.”

On most thread I found out that this is due to wrong boot sequence. However in my case, when I check my boot option, I only got 1,

WDC WD40

Which is my 4TB drive.

The tricky question, I am not sure if this is how I set it up to only have one disk for boot and data and I am not even sure if that is possible but now there is only one disk present and no SD card nor usb disk on my PC, the only possibility is that I set it up with single disk for data and for boot device or there were either usb or sd card that I attached as boot device that fall off during transfer.

In either case, I have a very simple question, what are my options to get my freenas back in action?

If I created new boot disk from usb, will I get all my shares back? Will my data be intact?

Thanks

 

[Chris Moore]

HP Pro 3010
Intel core2 Quad Q8300 2.5Ghz
4GB Ram

What version of FreeNAS are you using?

 

[Chris Moore]

now there is only one disk present and no SD card nor usb disk on my PC, the only possibility is that I set it up with single disk for data and for boot device

No, that is not how it works. You must have had a boot device. It was often done that the boot device was a USB stick. Is there, or was there a USB stick in the computer? You may have removed it when you were moving the system. If it is missing now, you can put a new stick in the system and install FreeNAS, then import your existing pool. You will just need to setup your sharing again.

It is also possible that the old boot device failed.

I don't suppose you made a backup of the configuration?

 

[Chris Moore]

Will my data be intact?

As long as you don't modify your data drive by trying to install FreeNAS to it. I would disconnect the data drive while installing FreeNAS to a new USB drive, just to be sure. Then you can connect the data drive, import the pool, share it to the network. Back in business with no data lost.

 

[antz]

Thanks.

I will try to create new boot disk usb and report back.

 

[Chris Moore]

4GB Ram

It does matter a little about what version of FreeNAS you were using because if it was really old, there are differences.
One thing is the minimum hardware requirements:

Hardware Requirements
http://www.freenas.org/hardware-requirements/

 

[Chris Moore]

I only got 1,

WDC WD40

Which is my 4TB drive.

You really should have a mirrored boot device, so if one should fail, the system can still operate from the other. Same goes for your data drive. Just having a single drive, if it dies, you loose all your data.

You would also get some benifit from reading these:

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/

FreeNAS® Quick Hardware Guide
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/freenas®-quick-hardware-guide.7/

Hardware Recommendations Guide Rev 1e) 2017-05-06
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

 

[antz]

Thanks Chris for patiently giving guidance to noob user like me.

All sorted out.

It seems my boot usb was taken out during transfer.

I almost made a mistake of importing disk instead of importing volume to the new OS. Luckily I did it correctly.

All files are intact and im running the latest freenas now.

By this experience, it seems to me that this is a much better approach when upgrading from one version to another. When something went wrong, I can just put back the old usb.

Since I have nothing else but the vanilla OS and smb file shares.

Am I making sense?

Thanks again for the guidance.

antz