TrueNAS Core 13.0 U5.3 Failing to Install

[Tony Self]

I posted a previous post late last night after a frustrating day trying to download the current TrueNas Core install file. In the early hours of this morning I had two successful downloads. One on my Ubuntu laptop and one on my Intel MacBook Pro. Using Balena Etcher on both laptops I managed to successfully install the iso file on to a SanDisk USB stick. But that's where the successes finish. Every USB Install I have created has failed to take me to the TrueNAS Core install screen and I have tried many times over the last two days.

Let me give you a bit more detail. I am working on a new build to replace my existing HP Proliant Microserver Gen8. The details of the build as as follows: -

Silverstone CS380 8 Bay compact NAS Tower
Silverstone Decathlon DA850 Modular Power Supply
ASRock Rack X570D4U-2L2T Motherboard
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G with Radeon Graphics
2 x Crucial 32GB DDR4 - 3200 (CT32G4DFD832A)
LSI 9240-8I 6Gbps SAS HBA FW:P20 9211-8I IT Mode (This is connected to the 8 Bay backplane but no disks are installed yet)
MR-6601 6 Bay Hard Disk Enclosure for 2.5" Sata SSD
Kingston AS400 120GB SSD - Connected to motherboard sata port 2
Pioneer R545 W489 120GB SSD - Connected to Motherboard sata port 3

I have set the bios to boot from the Sandisk USB install disk. This boots and displays the TrueNAS Installer (see image below). Whether you select option 1 or leave it to default it scrolls passed various commands until it reaches "ums0: 3 buttons and [XYZT] coordinates ID=1" where the screen pauses and then starts displaying COMMAND xxxxxx TIMEOUT every 30 seconds (See second image bellow). I have waited for up to 420 seconds before giving up and either powering the machine off or using the reset button.

I have no idea what the timed out commands are, but I know from the TrueNAS Core installation video that the installation menu should have appeared relatively quickly.

Today I thought there must be something wrong with the build, so I tried installing Ubuntu Desktop 22.04.3. It installed perfectly without issue, so it's not a problem with the build.

I have done many FreeNAS and TrueNAS Core installs in the past without an issue, so what's going wrong this time. Please someone point me in the right direction.

Regards

Tony Self

 

[JohnDigital]

So what are the 6 external disks plugged into? I understand its an external enclosure of some sort. This error points to an MFI driver issue and usually this is a RAID/PERC card or some sort and are generally considered nuh-uh around here. Is the BIOS of this machine set to handle these external enclosure as JBOD/regular SATA ports or is there some sort of RAID happening at a bios level? Did you flash this HBA to IT mode?

 

[Tony Self]

Hi, sorry for the delay in responding to you. I had been getting very frustrated with the build, I needed to stand down for a few days.

I managed to get a few TrueNas Core iso downloaded and I did check the sha-256 to make sure the files weren't corrupt. Each time I try the install I get the same result as shown in the two images above.

As I said, I tried a Ubuntu Desktop 22.04 install which succeeded without issue.

I then thought I would try a TrueNAS Scale install. Again a successful installation without any issues

I really wanted to install TrueNAS Core as that is what I have got currently installed on my old HP Microserver Gen8. I was wanting to bring across my existing pools which contain my Plex data and my Plugins and Jails on a SSD pool. However, looking at the apps available on Scale, I am not adverse to upgrading to Scale.

One thing I have discovered with my build is the IPMI module on the ASRock Rack motherboard does not appear to be working properly. The server management section of the Bios reports that the BMC self test status is FAILED. I am wondering whether the TrueNAS Core install would pickup on this and perhaps that is why the install is failing . IO am contacting the company that supplied my with the motherboard for their support.

Comments would be appreciated

Tony Self

 

[Tony Self]

So what are the 6 external disks plugged into? I understand its an external enclosure of some sort. This error points to an MFI driver issue and usually this is a RAID/PERC card or some sort and are generally considered nuh-uh around here. Is the BIOS of this machine set to handle these external enclosure as JBOD/regular SATA ports or is there some sort of RAID happening at a bios level? Did you flash this HBA to IT mode?

At the moment there are only two 120GB SSDs as listed above. The 6 disk enclosure sits in a 5.25" bay in the Silverstone case. I have connected the data ports on the disk enclosure to sata ports 2 through to 7 on the ASRock Rack motherboard. At the moment there are only two SSDs installed in the disk enclosure which are connected to data ports 2 and 3. I have just ordered 4 new 2TB SSDs which I will install in the disk enclosure using the remaining four slots and will use to create a 4 disk Z1 pool.

The LSI HBA is connected to the 8 drive hot swap backplane in the Silverstone case. I will be using these bays to import my existing 8 drive Z2 pool that contains all my media files